


Martyr's Fall: The Angel of Death

by leonidaslion



Series: Angelwings [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Dark, Drama, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-23
Updated: 2011-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-15 01:00:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 30,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/155365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonidaslion/pseuds/leonidaslion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam is determined to save Dean, but it isn't going to be easy....</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Hours later, at dusk, they were sitting side by side on the Impala’s hood, looking out across gently rustling rows of corn. A trick of the light had painted the stalks with red, and Dean supposed that it would have been beautiful, if he hadn’t already seen enough of that color lately. All those years of hunting and he had never known until now that blood came in different shades. Depended on how much there was, and how fresh. He’d become a goddamned expert on the subject over the last year.

So he turned his head away from the setting sun, to look at Sam instead: Sam, sitting beside him, eyes on the corn, mind elsewhere. Dean looked only a moment before dropping his head down to stare at his hands because looking at his brother wasn’t any easier. Damn it, why couldn’t Sam have left it alone? He was never supposed to know. If Rachel found out … _No, don’t go there, Winchester._

Dean clenched his hands into fists. Even if Sam somehow had managed to find out, he was supposed to end it. Not play medic for a murderer. Not wince and cry while he cut the bullets out of Dean’s side. Not lean Dean against his chest while they waited for his body to heal.

Dean wished like hell for what had to be the thousandth time that Dad was there. He would have done what needed to be done, no dithering about it. Hell, John Winchester never would have let things get this far.

But as angry as he was—at the bitch, at Sam, at himself—Dean couldn’t manage to blame his brother for anything. He’d walked into this all on his own by keeping his mouth shut about those damned incubus bites until it was too late. Even after, when he was in Lawrence— _fucking hate that town_ —kneeling in the basement with Rachel smiling down at him, he could have said no.

And maybe he couldn’t end it himself—wasn’t allowed to end it—but he could have gotten someone else to pull the trigger. Bobby, maybe, or some nameless hunter from the Roadhouse. But no, that would be letting the bitch get away with it, and he still hadn’t quite given up the hope that he was going to get the chance for a little payback someday. Rachel would do well watch the fuck out if that time ever came because Dean didn’t think he had many scruples left. She’d stripped them away.

 _She’ll bleed. Bitch is gonna bleed for this._ It had been his personal mantra since Max. Between that promise to himself and the knowledge that Sam was safe and happier than he’d been in a long time, Dean had managed to cling to sanity while wading waist deep through madness. Thoughts of Sam grinning, laughing—Sam during those three days they’d spent at Disney World after Dean had spent a particularly bad three hours with a man in Arnette, Texas—kept him from putting his fist through the mirror when he looked into it in the morning.

“Why Elise Tallahause?” Sam asked suddenly.

Dean hunched his shoulders in a shrug. “Why anyone, Sam? Probably looked at the bitch funny on the street or something.”

He saw Sam shake his head at the edge of his vision. “No, Dean. You said it yourself: it was personal with her. Think, man: did Rachel ever say anything—do anything—that might have indicated why that was?”

“She doesn’t talk to me, dude. We’re not sitting over there having a few beers together. She calls, I show up, she gives me the name and I leave.” _And sometimes I tell her to go fuck herself and we head downstairs for a little quality time._ God, he hoped Sam hadn't caught any of that in those dreams of his. Dean couldn't decide what was worse: Sam sneaking around in his head and getting a glimpse of all the blood he’d spilt, or Sam sneaking around in his head and seeing his sessions in the basement.

“That’s first, then,” Sam said. “We need to find out why Rachel targeted her.” Then, in a rush: “And you aren’t going back there again.”

Dean grimaced and pushed himself off the hood. He’d known this was coming. “I don’t really have a choice here, Sam.”

“We’ll work something out, okay? We’ll—Hell, I’ll knock you out and tie you up if I need to, but you aren’t—I can’t just sit here and let you go back to her, Dean.”

Dean laughed humorlessly. “Only one way to stop me, and you made it pretty clear that you aren’t willing to do what it takes.” Dean thought that he might hate his brother a little for that.

“No. There has to be another way.”

“You think I haven’t tried?” Dean demanded. He had. After she’d started giving him human targets he’d tried like hell. Alcohol didn’t do anything but make him more susceptible to her call: he’d been halfway to Lawrence before he sobered up, swerving the Impala all over the road. Miracle he hadn’t hit anyone. Drugs had worked for a little while, but he had to sober up in order to score when his stash ran out, and a minute of conscious thought was too long. She hadn’t been pleased when he finally showed up that time. Had done things that left phantom twinges of pain in him for weeks afterwards, even with his new regenerative ability. It had been worth it, though, to see the look on the bitch’s face. To know that he could do something, no matter how small, to inconvenience her.

But Sam was frowning stubbornly, and Dean knew that his brother could be worse than a mule when he put his mind to it. “I’ll find something,” he said. “We’re going to try Missouri first, maybe she can do something.”

“I can’t go back to Lawrence, man. I think the bitch can feel me when I get close enough. Hell, maybe she can sense me everywhere. If she doesn't already know something's up, she will if I go back there on my own, without her jerking the leash."

“Okay.” Sam nodded. “Missouri can come to us, then.” He was already pulling out his phone and flipping it open. Dean put a hand on his brother’s arm and was shamefully grateful when Sam didn’t flinch away.

“Not here, okay? We can call her, but not …” He wouldn’t look at the house. At the old dog that had been sitting on the front step waiting to go in for a few hours now. “Not here.”

Dean didn’t know if Missouri could do her thing long distance over the phone, but if she could he didn’t want her stumbling into this mess. Not while it was still fresh, still pressed against his skin. Not while he could still feel Landon’s fingers curled around his wrists, Landon's last breaths against his face.

 _Maybe she’ll end it,_ he thought suddenly. Missouri wasn’t hooked into the hunters the way some of their contacts were, but she knew enough to find one if she needed to. And when she found out what Dean had been doing—what he’d become—then maybe she’d turn him in to be hunted down like a rabid dog. Best not to get his hopes up, though, and doubly best not to let Sam know what he was thinking because then Sam wouldn’t call her at all.

But the idea that Missouri might not be on the “Sure, Let’s Help Dean Out” Bandwagon obviously hadn’t occurred to Dean's brother, because Sam just nodded and said, “Yeah, okay.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sam insisted on looking at Dean’s back again when they finally stopped driving at two in the morning and checked themselves into a fleabag motel in Colorado. Dean put up with his brother’s prodding for a few minutes and then ducked away, pulling his shirt back on.

Sam frowned at him. “I wasn’t finished, Dean.”

“Yeah, you were.” Dean flopped down on the bed and pressed his back firmly against the headboard. Sam poking at the tattoo hadn’t hurt, precisely, but it had felt damned strange. Dean had felt something moving inside him when Sam was running his fingers across his shoulder blades: something unfolding just below the skin. It was the sensation that came to him every time he killed, and to have it surface when it was Sam standing behind him—Sam’s hands pushing against that goddamned tattoo—made him sick to his stomach.

Sam was staring at him beseechingly, and Dean shook his head. “I mean it, Sam.”

“Fine. I’ll have Missouri look when she gets here.” Sam had called while Dean was in the office renting a room.

“You do that.” As if it would make any difference.

“Dean …” Sam’s head drooped, helplessly. “Why didn’t you tell me, why didn’t you …” He swallowed.

Dean’s heart clenched and his stomach heaved. He’d almost told Sam a million times—God, he’d _wanted_ to—but … _‘Oh, and Dean? You tell Sam about this and I’ll keep you here. I don’t need to let you stay with him, now do I?’_ And there had been hints of more, whenever he was close to cracking: hints that, although she couldn’t do anything to Sam directly, there were always ways around that: plenty of ways for someone as resourceful as she was. Someone who was on tea-cozy terms with the yellow-eyed son of a bitch.

“I couldn’t,” he said finally. “She would have—at first I didn’t know how bad it was, thought I could fix it without dragging you in, and then, later ... later it was too late.”

Sam’s jaw worked and Dean glanced around for a distraction—something, anything. He saw the remote for the twelve inch TV sitting on the nightstand next to him and grabbed it, flipped the TV on to what promised to be a riveting infomercial on the Wonder!Sponge. Sam stepped in front of the TV and snapped it off.

“Oh, come on. Give me a break here, dude!”

“We have to talk about this, Dean.”

“Already did. Now, you want to get out of the way, Gigantor? I think I recognized that model from—”

“Please. I can’t just … Dean, you—you’re not okay, man. And I’m not talking about the supernatural stuff. You need to talk about this, about those peop—”

“Oh, just shoot me already,” Dean snapped irritably, and then realized, too late, as Sam’s face crumpled, that he probably should have said something else. He sighed, but Sam was already slinking over to the other bed and laying down in it, curled up on his side and facing away from Dean.

“Hey,” Dean said. “I didn’t mean it, okay?”

Sam snorted in derision, but the noise came out sounding a little choked.

“All right, fine, I meant it. But I didn’t mean it now. Sam, I just don’t … I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I want you to tell me what’s going on in your head without me having to drag it out of you for once. I want to know what you’re feeling without you getting all sarcastic on me.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I think I know what I want, Dean.” Sam had rolled over and was looking up at him, eyes wide and red. Kid had spent way too much time crying today.

“Bullshit. You’re just looking for more shit that you can feel guilty about. This isn’t your fault, Sam. It’s a cosmic joke. God woke up one morning and said, ‘hey, I haven’t fucked around with the Winchesters lately. Let’s see what I can whip up.’”

“I brought you—”

“Damn it, Sam! What’s it gonna take to get through to you? You think I haven’t known exactly what I’ve been doing? It was my choice, Sam. Mine. You don’t get to take that away from me.”

“She never gave you a choice, Dean,” Sam said quietly.

And that was _it_. Dean had gotten real good at not thinking about it: he’d taken everything he’d done, everything he’d been forced to do, and sealed it away. Not a perfect job, maybe, but good enough to get him through the day: to keep him moving. Now Sam had to go and pick at the scab, trying to rip through to the raw wound underneath. He’d manage it, too, if Dean didn’t get away from him soon, because for all the walls Dean had built up around himself over the years, he’d never figured out how to keep Sam on the other side. Squirmy bastard kept slipping through.

Dean shoved off the bed and grabbed his keys, sitting there on the motel table. He heard Sam sit up behind him and ignored his brother as he threw the little he’d unpacked back into his bag.

“Dean? What’re you doing?” A little boy’s voice, that, no matter how deep. The voice of a chubby five year old who wanted to know why God couldn’t bring his mommy back if he asked real nice. Dean remembered what he’d said, then.

 _‘God’s not real, Sammy. He’s just some story people make up so they can feel better about themselves. And you don’t need him anyway. We’ve got Dad. Better’n God any day.’_

 _‘An’ you, right, Dean?’_

 _‘Yeah, sure. Me too.’_

“Dean?”

Dean snapped back to the present and said, coldly, “This isn’t working. I’m getting another room.”

“You can’t just walk out on me when you don’t want to deal with something!” Oh, Sam was angry now. Better than that hurt, frightened voice he’d been using before, though.

“Funny, that, coming from you.” Dean finished packing, zipped his bag up and slung it across one shoulder. Felt the old argument slip into place easily. An oldie but a goodie. Never wears out. It had been a while since he’d brought it up, though. Took Sam a second to register what he meant.

“What are you—” Then, as he got it: “Damn it, that wasn’t the same! I wasn’t running away, Dean, I was heading toward something.”

Dean shrugged. “Looked the same from where I was standing.” He was headed for the door now, not turning back, because he couldn’t look at Sam right now. Too raw, too empty. Maybe bringing Stanford up hadn’t been such a hot idea.

“Don’t you do this,” Sam ground out. “You can’t just use my going to college as some kind of out this time.”

 _Watch me._ “I’ll try not to kill anyone else before Missouri gets here.” Dean slipped out of the room and slammed the door behind him. He jogged across the parking lot, to the relative safety of the front desk, but Sam didn’t follow.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Missouri showed up two days later: it had taken her some time to clear her schedule and get the things she thought she might need together. Sam hadn’t really told her what was going on over the phone—hadn’t known how—but he’d given her a rough outline. Some kind of compulsion on Dean. Didn’t know what the thing was that had put it there. No, they couldn’t come to Lawrence. He’d tell her when she got there.

So, two days of sitting in the motel room staring at a staticky TV and trying not to think of Dean three doors down doing … Hell, Sam wasn’t sure _what_ Dean was doing other than drinking. Heavily. And not talking to Sam. Sam had tried calling a few times and given up when all Dean had to say was, “Is she here yet?” He could have gone over there, pounded on Dean’s door until Dean let him in so they could talk, but God help him, he didn’t want to.

It wasn’t that he blamed Dean for what he’d done—how could he, when Sam was the one who was responsible for the whole mess in the first place? Since the shock of that first day had worn off, he’d been sickened by what his brother had done, but not by his brother, which was a distinction that he wasn’t sure Dean was in the frame of mind to catch. Sam had an inkling that it would only get worse if he actually got Dean to open up and talk to him, and he didn’t know what was going to show on his face. Funny, really, that Sam could lie his ass off to any of the hundred of strangers they met and couldn’t, for the life of him, school his face when it came to Dean, while Dean was probably one of the world’s worst liars when it came to everyone but, apparently, his little brother.

So when the knock came on his door, brisk and business-like, accompanied by that deceptively soft voice calling out, “Sam? I know you’re in there, boy. Open up right this minute,” he was off the bed in a second and flying across the motel room. He threw open the door and dragged Missouri inside, bent almost in half trying to hug her. Good thing Dean wasn’t there; Sam’d never live it down. Missouri patted him on the back and then wrapped her hands around his arms and moved him, gently, back to arm’s length away. She hadn’t been smiling, but as she studied him she began to actively frown.

“Missouri, I—”

“Hush, boy. And try to calm down. You’re wound up so tight right now I can’t get anything off you.” She stared at him for a moment longer and then sighed, dropping his arms. “It’s no good. I’ll try again later.” She peered around him further into the room. “Where’s that brother of yours?”

Sam’s throat clenched. “He’s in number 5.”

Missouri raised an eyebrow at that. “He left you in here all alone? What’s going on, Sam?”

Sam told her what he could bring himself to tell her, which wasn’t a lot. He told her about the Aspect of the Demon, and about Bobby calling with Rachel’s name. About the ritual, and how Rachel had called Dean later. That she was in Lawrence, which was why they hadn’t been able to go to Missouri. That Rachel had done … things … to Dean. That she wanted him to do … things … for her. At which point, if Missouri had been Dean, she would have snorted and asked if he could vague it up a little for her. As it was she looked more than a little annoyed and worried.

“She’s powerful strong, to be so close to me and not have me sense her. You’ve no idea what she is?”

Sam shook his head. “None.”

“Does Dean?”

Sam started to say no, then hesitated. Finally answered, “Some part of him does, I think, but he doesn’t want to admit it. Back when this all started, he said that he saw what she was when that thing was possessing him, but that he forgot, after. I think maybe he made himself forget, so he wouldn’t have to know.”

Missouri sighed. “How that boy can hide so many things from himself, I don’t know. Well, no use putting it off. Let’s go see him.”

Sam opened the door for Missouri and then jogged to Dean’s room, where he tried to patiently stand still when Missouri took her time following. His stomach was turning over in knots. This was it. She was going to be able to help— _had_ to help. Because Sam had no fucking clue what to do if she couldn’t.

He let Missouri knock on the door.

There was the sound of something breaking from inside the room, and then a muffled curse. Missouri raised one eyebrow and knocked again, more insistently.

“If tha’s you, Sammy, you better haf tha’ nosy bitch with you or I’m ‘a come out ‘n ki-kick yer ass.”

Sam winced at the look on Missouri’s face.

“Dean Wichester,” she snapped. “You open that door this instant or so help me—”

She didn’t get to finish because Dean pulled the door open before she could. He stood in the doorway, holding himself up using the doorframe and squinting at the daylight. The room behind him was dark and stank as though Dean had been pouring liquor on the floor rather than imbibing it. Sam pulled back a little from the fumes.

“S-Sorry. You here t’ turn me o’er to the posse?” Dean let go of the frame with one hand to mime a gun. Shot it and made a little ‘pow’ sound. It might have been funny if Sam hadn’t just figured out what had been going through his brother’s mind—too little, too late again.

Dean had let Sam call Missouri in because he thought she’d sic the hunters on him. The thought had never occurred to Sam, but now it was all he could think about. Oh, God, he’d done it again. He’d betrayed Dean. It was too late to get Missouri away from his brother—their faces were inches apart, she had to know …

But Missouri’s face only registered disgust. “Boy, you’re a damned fool.” Then, dismissing Dean, she turned to Sam. “Get him cleaned up, and then bring him back to your room. I’ll order some coffee.” Then she turned her back on both of them and walked away muttering about ‘stubborn Winchesters’ under her breath.

Leaving Sam staring at his brother. Dean just blinked up at him, pupils blown wide.

“You asshole,” Sam said, finally.

“Whasamatter, Sammy? Got ‘cho pannies in a twist?”

Sam shoved Dean, hard enough that his brother lost his grip on the door and toppled back into his room. Steeling himself against the smell, Sam followed quickly, then almost fell over himself. God, the fumes were strong. He kicked the door shut behind him and they were in the hot, semi-darkness. Dean had all his curtains drawn tightly shut.

“Dammi’, Sammy! Made m’ fall.”

Sam could hear Dean trying to get back to his feet and, as he flipped on the light, could finally fully see his brother. It was like looking at a train wreck. Dean was wearing sweats and a t-shirt. Stains, old and new, coated them. His hair was matted and looked slick with sweat. There were dark circles under his eyes and his skin was too pale.

“You look like shit,” Sam said, tersely.

Dean just scowled, finally having crawled to the bed. He was using it to get back onto his feet.

Sam let his eyes travel over the rest of the room and his stomach clenched. God, there was … there were … there had to be at least thirty liquor bottles lying around, most of them empty. The hard stuff. More than half those bottles had contained _Everclear_. Sam hurried over to Dean and hauled him up by his shirt. Dean swatted at him, missing widely.

“How much did you drink, Dean?” He shook his brother lightly, trying to get him to focus. “How much of this shit is in you and how much is on the floor?”

“Mos’ of it.”

“Which? You or the floor?”

“Me. Thing I dunno how to hol’ a bottle?”

Sam swore. “We have to get you to a hospital, Dean. Come on.”

“M’ _fine_. Jus’ … jus’ gimme a few minnuts.”

“You’re _not_ fine, Dean. You drank—Jesus, I don’t know _how_ much you drank. We have to get your stomach pumped before—”

Dean shoved at him, connecting this time. “Be fine. ‘S a poison. C’n han— _handle_ it. Han’le more.”

“What? Oh, never mind. Shut up. Where are the keys?” Keys, keys. He had to get Dean to a hospital, _now_.

Dean frowned and staggered over to the head of the bed. Reached under the pillow and pulled out his knife. Drew it in one long motion across his arm before Sam had realized what he intended to do. Sam lunged across the room, grabbed Dean’s wrist and twisted, making him drop the knife. Then he snatched his brother’s other arm and stared down at it. The only sign of the cut was a smear of blood and a red line that faded even as he watched.

Dean pulled his arms back, rubbed at the blood with his thumb, then held his thumb up in Sam’s face. “See? Pis-poison’s the same. Hels—heals fast. Alc’hol’s pois’n.”

Oh. Oh yeah, right. Sam hadn’t forgotten about that because it wasn’t everyday you sliced open your brother’s stomach to pull out some bullets and then watched it heal up half an hour later, but … yeah, okay, he’d forgotten.

He stared at Dean, who was blinking back at him with bleary eyes, trying to get a grip on his anger. As though they didn’t have enough problems, now Dean had to indulge in a little binge drinking. But then he lowered his gaze and the smear of red on his brother’s arm was an accusation. After all, he’d left Dean alone to do this to himself, hadn’t he?

So Sam tried to sound at least halfway civil when he said, “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”

He got Dean in the bathroom, turned the shower on and set the temperature, then tried to help Dean get his clothes off and into the stall—‘C’n wash myself, man, Jesus’—and then picked up the room a little. Found some clothes in Dean’s bag and took them outside to air them out for a few minutes, which did wonders for the smell.

An hour later Sam had Dean cleaned and dressed and sober and was seriously considering just loading him in the Impala and running. Missouri hadn’t gotten a good look at Dean yet. Maybe they could just get out of there before she found out what was going on: before it was too late. But really, Sam had already told her too much. And the Impala was parked right outside Sam’s room: she’d know if they tried to take off. Besides, there was no way he was going to get Dean to run.

“I won’t let them kill you, Dean,” Sam said before they headed over.

Dean just smiled at him, a little sadly. “You say that like you’ll have a choice.”


	2. Chapter 2

Missouri was sitting in the room’s one chair with a steaming cup of black coffee on the table in front of her. She looked Dean up and down when he came in. Dean met the reproach with an expression of apathy. He took the coffee without being told and drank it, although he’d sobered up half an hour ago and was finished with his hangover five minutes after that.

“Sam tells me you have a problem,” Missouri said without preamble.

Dean glanced at Sam and then shrugged. “Something like that.” He sipped the coffee.

“Will one of you boys _please_ tell me what’s going on?”

That got a response out of Dean. He raised one eyebrow and said, “What, your psychic mojo quit on you?”

“I told you before: I can’t work miracles. Sam here’s so tightly wound that all I’m getting from him are jumbled up pictures. _You_ I can’t seem to feel at all.” She seemed confused by that.

“Figures,” Dean muttered. “Well, that’s a perk, anyway.”

He was obviously not committed to trying to win Missouri over. Sam quickly nudged into the conversation by clearing his throat and suggesting, “Maybe you could look at his back? Tell us if you see anything?”

Missouri looked skeptical, but she shrugged. “My gifts don’t usually work like that, but I’ll try, Sam.” Her gaze sharpened as she turned it on Dean. “You, off with the shirt and turn around. No, don’t get up; you’re fine where you are.”

Her breath caught slightly when she saw the tattoo. “Beautiful,” she said. Sam looked at it again himself, supposed that it might look that way if you didn’t know what it meant. If you hadn’t seen the foul, smoky things that unfolded from it. Her hand reached out, brushed lightly over Dean’s skin, and Sam saw his brother’s back twitch once and then Dean was on the other side of the room— _damn_ he’d gotten fast—with his back against the wall and his eyes wide.

But Sam didn’t have time to deal with his brother because Missouri had collapsed on the floor, one hand clutching at the bedspread and the other pressed against her chest. _Heart attack,_ Sam thought, and he dove for her, hands fluttering out to try to comfort her even while he knew that he should be calling 911 instead. Then Missouri lifted her head and looked past Sam, at Dean, and he could tell from the horror in her eyes that she knew. Touching Dean—touching that tattoo—had unlocked whatever doors his brother had managed to slam in her face and she had seen everything.

The hand that had been on her chest reached for Sam, pushing at him, and she gasped out, “I’m fine, Sam. Go help your brother, _now_.”

Sam didn’t want to move—Dean could wait for two goddamned minutes because Missouri looked so fragile and pained and _god, is she dying?_ —but then he heard a choked sound from behind him and Dean’s voice, a whisper, saying, “Sammy.”

He twisted his head to look and his mouth dried up instantly.

The wings were back.

Dean was pressing his back against the wall as though he could push them back inside his shoulders but they were wide and thrashing—too large for the confines of the room. It was the first time that Sam had seen them clearly and he noticed now that the shadow wasn’t black but a deep, dark red: the color of dried blood. Dean threw his head back, jaw tightened in a grimace, and Sam saw that his eyes were filmed over with silver.

 _No. No, damn it._

“Get out, Sammy,” Dean panted. “Take her and get out I can’t ... I can’t …”

Then Missouri’s voice from behind him, rapid and breathy, “You need to talk him down, Sam. Remind him who he is.”

“I don’t know what to do.” It hurt to admit that, but Sam had never felt so helpless before in his life, not even when Jessica had been pinned to the ceiling, burning, because it was _Dean_ and he was supposed to be invincible.

Dean’s whole body was shaking now. His hands were clawing at the wall, searching for something to anchor on. Dean’s eyes had slid shut, hiding the silver, but Sam thought he could see it shining out from underneath his brother’s eyelids anyway.

“You have to try or he’ll kill us both.”

No, Dean wouldn’t. He _couldn’t_. Not Sam. Sam knew that Dean would rather die than hurt him. But those wings were so dark, and there was a smell filling the room: the stale-sour smell of feathers and blood.

“Hurry, Sam!”

Sam was up on his feet and moving toward Dean before he realized it, and as he got closer he could feel a phantom wind—cold—rushing past him. There were words riding the wind: a woman’s voice, a man’s, he couldn’t tell. Thought that maybe it was both.

 **Kill them, Dean. You’re mine: you belong to me. Kill them and then come. Mine. Kill them, Dean. Do it now.**

Over and over and over, beating into Sam’s skin, and he couldn’t imagine what those words felt like to Dean because he knew that he was only catching a hint of it, through those damned powers of his, and _he_ felt like killing Missouri and then himself and handing Dean a plane ticket with a final destination of Lawrence, Kansas.

“Dean,” he said, and he wanted to shout—felt as though he needed to shout to be heard over that incessant, hateful chant. Somehow he managed to keep his voice modulated, though. Wouldn’t do to have someone calling the cops on them. “It’s Sam. It’s okay, Dean, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

One of Dean’s eyes cracked open a slit, revealing a slice of pure silver. “Have to.”

“No, you don’t. She doesn’t own you, Dean. No one does. Okay?”

“No. Not ...” He closed his mouth, swallowed. “ _Hers_. Have to … do what she wants.”

Sam didn’t want to get any closer because the way those shadow-wings were moving around, one of them was going to touch him and he really, really didn’t want that. Plus, Dean’s muscles were tensing in a familiar way that promised pain and violence. And if Dean attacked now, he’d kill them. They wouldn’t have a chance. Hell, they wouldn’t have had a chance if Sam had been armed with an Uzi.

“No, Dean. You don’t. You aren’t hers. You’re—you’re mine, okay? You’re my brother. Dean. Dean Winchester. Your father is John Winchester and your mother is Mary and you’re a stubborn son of a bitch. Fight her!”

“Trying …”

The right wing clipped the side of Sam’s face and he smelt ozone for a second. He _felt_ it touch him, felt the dry brush of feathers he couldn’t actually see in the shadow, and he saw a shudder go through Dean. Then the wings were folding up, and Dean collapsed forward with a sharp grunt of pain as they snapped back into him. Sam caught him before he hit the ground, lowered him the rest of the way.

Dean was soaked in sweat and his eyes were dilated as he opened them to look up at Sam. But green. Human. _Oh, thank God._

“Sammy,” Dean breathed, and then went lax, eyes slipping shut. Sam checked his pulse frantically and was relieved to find it steady and strong.

He sensed something behind him and looked up to see Missouri standing there, tears running freely down her cheeks. “Oh, you poor babies. You poor, poor babies.”

“What—what happened?” Sam asked.

“There was some sort of warding on him. The thing that’s got its hands on your brother is awful possessive, Sam.”

“Do you know what it is?”

Missouri frowned. “Let’s get him into bed first, then we’ll talk. I don’t think he’s slept in days: he should be out for a while.”

Missouri had said ‘ _let’s_ get him into bed’, but she meant _Sam_ could get him into bed. She directed him as he lifted Dean off the floor and half-dragged, half-carried him over to the bed. Dean felt heavier than he used to be, but he sure as hell hadn’t put on any weight. More muscle bulk, then: not noticeable unless you were looking for it, unless you were carrying your unconscious brother across a hotel room—and don’t think it, don’t ( _dead weight_ ) go there. At least Sam hoped it was muscle weight, because the alternative— _they’re there, they’re always there, even when I can’t see them_ —was too horrible to entertain.

Sam slid Dean’s boots off and managed to fold him into the bed, Dean an uncomfortable, limp weight the entire time. It made Sam uneasy. Before, Dean had been a light sleeper no matter how tired he was: a soft noise in the room—anything that didn’t fit—and he’d be crouched on the floor next to the bed, knife in hand. But Sam thought that he could have brought a parade in here, complete with marching band, and Dean would have just laid there, face lax and empty.

Sam allowed himself a moment. Put a hand on his brother’s head and ruffled the short hair there, the way Dean had always done to him when he was younger. Heard Dean’s voice, grumbling, in his head. _Stow the touchy-feely crap, Sam._

“Sam.”

“Yeah.” He swallowed the tears that wanted to come—he’d cried enough about this, damn it—and turned around to face Missouri.

She had pulled the chair over to the other bed and was sitting in it. Now that she had his attention, she leaned forward and patted the bed. Sam stepped over and let himself drop onto the mattress wearily. Now it was going to come, whatever it was. Missouri would tell Sam that Dean needed to be put down. She’d …

“Shhh, Sam. Relax. I’m not gonna do anything without talking it over with you first.”

Sam gulped and nodded. Had his face been that transparent, or was she reading his mind again? He wished he knew. Wanted to ask but didn’t quite dare.

“Your brother’s in a world of pain, Sam, but I guess you already knew that. This thing that’s got him: it’s hurt him every way it could find, but it’s got him worst here.” She pressed one hand against Sam’s chest. “Dean never was much good at believing he was worth much, even when he was a child, but this thing’s taken away what little value he thought he had.” She took her hand back, regarded him seriously. “You are the only thing keeping this boy going.”

Sam couldn’t help the tears now, or the shuddering breath he drew as he furiously wiped them away. It was too much. He’d known, subconsciously, but to hear it just thrown out there like that … He just couldn’t handle that. No one was supposed to be someone else’s only reason for living. The world didn’t work like that. Except that it did, apparently.

“Do you, ah …” He choked, grimaced and wiped at his eyes again. “Do you know what’s doing this?”

“Maybe. What do you know about the Jewish faith?”

“Uh …”

“Or the Christian one, for that matter.”

“Eve gave Adam the apple in the Garden of Eden—caused original sin. Moses broke the first set of tablets. I know the plagues. Stuff Pastor Jim taught us.”

Missouri snorted. “I meant things pertaining to your line of work, Sam.”

“Oh. Uh, demons. God made the demons when he cast Satan out of heaven.” And wasn’t this conversation dredging up all sorts of things he didn’t want to think about. Memories of Rachel’s basement. Rachel talking to him about God, and the Fall. “She—it—talked about the Fall. When I first brought Dean to it. Are you saying it’s some kind of demon?”

Missouri leaned forward, intent. “Tell me what it said.”

“She—No, it. _It_ was talking about demons, how they didn’t have a choice whether to be good or evil, because God hadn’t given angels free will, and they’d been angels before. It said that God didn’t care about us—about this war—so long as the demons were still suffering. It said that He was cruel.”

“It would.” Missouri nodded. “Have you ever heard of the _Tomb of the Damned_ , Sam?”

“No?”

Missouri grimaced. “I could just slap your father, God rest him. The man was a great hunter, but your mother’s death left him with a blind spot big enough for the earth to damn itself through.”

Sam wanted to stick up for his father—they’d had their differences, but not over John’s hunting expertise, hunting was something John Winchester had excelled at—but instead he asked, “What blind spot?”

“He lost his faith, Sam. Mary dying and him finding out about all the evil things in this world made him turn his back on God. He accepted the demons and decided that all the rest was nothing more than a fairy tale folks told to make themselves feel better.”

“Dean said that to me once,” Sam said, remembering. “When I asked why God couldn’t bring Mom back.”

“Parroting his daddy. And that’s probably why Dean’s made himself forget. He’s been John’s shadow in all things for his whole life, and even now he can’t bear to admit that his father may have been wrong about a few things.”

“Like God? Because God doesn’t have anything to do with what’s happening to Dean.”

“In a way, no. But in a way, this is all about the Lord. How much do you know about the Fall?”

“What Pastor Jim told us. That Satan was proud and he rebelled against God. There was a war in Heaven and God threw down all the angels that had fought against Him.”

“I thought as much. You only learned half of the story: the easy half. But Pastor Jim didn’t tell you what happened to the others, I expect. The angels who refused to fight for either side?”

“He didn’t, but Rachel—it—said something about them—that God punished them, but she didn’t say how.”

“That’s the story that the _Tomb of the Damned_ tells. It was written by a Christian living in Corinth in the second century after Christ. This Christian claimed to have been visited by an angel who forced him to write its story and then spread it among his fellow Christians. The man claimed that the angel wanted to destroy man’s faith in God. For some reason, the book was never distributed. If it had been, and people had believed …Well, perhaps we would be living in different world now.”

“You’ve read it, haven’t you?”

Missouri nodded. “A friend of mine managed to find a copy. It’s full of terrible things, Sam. The angel talked about a cruel God who didn’t care about man: a God who nailed His only Son on a cross because He wanted to fuel a war as old as the human race. A God who had made His angels into devils. It told the entire story of the Fall, and what God did to the angels who would not choose a side.”

“What?” Sam’s mouth felt dry. He was all too sure that he knew where this was heading.

“He cast them down from Heaven, but not as far as those who had openly opposed him. He put them here, on earth, and bound them with His Word. Because they had watched from the sidelines when Lucifer and the others rose against him, they could now do so for the rest of eternity. And when the Last Day of Judgment comes, they will be left there still, alone, beyond the reach of Heaven or Hell.”

“You think it’s one of them, don’t you?” Sam asked. He didn’t want to believe it, but it fit. It fit so well.

“Not quite. You see, these angels are frozen, watching. They exist on a different plane from ours.”

“Then what? Why does any of this matter”

“It matters because the angel who told this story was punished as well. And God’s anger was _terrible_. But He couldn't bring Himself to destroy this angel completely because it was dearest to Him of all: first-made before even Lucifer himself. So He banished it to Earth, to live among men and to watch. To wait for Judgment Day, when God would finally decide where its fate lay. He didn’t bind it like the others, Sam: only made it swear an oath not to influence the War. As long as its actions didn’t impact the outcome, it could do whatever it wanted.”

“I asked my friend why He would do something like that and she told me that God was trying to offer it a chance to decide its own fate. Its own actions would make His decision for Him when the time came.”

Sam swallowed thickly. “Guess it got tired of waiting. So which … who is it?” He didn’t want to know, didn’t want to hear it. But Dean was lying in the other bed, pale and haunted. He couldn’t hide from this.

“Azrael, the Archangel of Death.”


	3. Chapter 3

Missouri didn’t know much more than that. She hadn’t been able to answer Sam when he had asked her, “What does it want from Dean?” She hadn’t known how to get Dean away from it, or how to kill it, and could you even kill an angel? An angel. Christ. And not just any angel, but God’s hitman. What the hunters had taken to calling Dean. It was so fucking ironic that it burned all the way down inside him like a raw shot of tequila.

Sam was staring at Dean, trying to see something different in his brother— _why him, why did it have to choose Dean to mess around with?_ —and not seeing much of anything. Asleep, Dean looked like he always had. But Sam remembered what Dean had been like less than an hour before: how his eyes had glowed silver, how phantom wings that looked like they’d been drenched in blood had spread out from his back.

“What are we supposed to do?” he asked, breaking the silence that had fallen between them. “He wants—Missouri, he wanted me to ... The only reason he let me call you is because he thought you’d hand him over to the hunters.”

“I know.” Missouri’s hand found his back and rubbed gently. “But even if I wanted to, it wouldn’t help none.”

“Why not?”

“Whatever Azrael’s planning, it’s had hundreds of years. And from what I got from Dean, it’s been waiting for him—or for someone like him—for almost as long as it’s been cast out from Heaven. I got the sense, faint-like, that it’s tried this before, whatever it’s doing, but something went wrong. I don’t think that it’s going to let a woman and a bunch of foolish men take Dean away from it now.”

She turned sad eyes on Dean. “I expect that it’s laid some other wardings on him, so that he can’t just lay down and die when they come for him. It’s changed him, Sam. However good a hunter Dean was before, he’s better now. He’s faster, stronger, harder to hurt.”

“But I had a …” Sam forced himself to continue. “He tried to get me to shoot him. I had the gun right up against his chest.”

Missouri nodded. “And if you’d started to try pulling the trigger, I’d wager there’d be two bodies out there at that farm and Dean’d be back in Lawrence.”

“I can’t just let it have him.” Sam told her. “I don’t care if it is an ang—an angel. He’s my brother. It can’t have him.”

“And maybe we can do something about that.”

“But you said that you didn’t know how to—”

“I don’t, honey, but my friend might. The one who has the copy of the _Tomb of the Damned_. She’s been studying it almost all her life, trying to find out every piece of information on Azrael she could.”

Hope flared sharply in Sam’s chest. “Who is she? Where can we find her?”

“Her name’s Elise Tallahause. Got herself a nice place up in Oregon—What’s wrong, Sam?”

“You didn’t—you don’t know?”

“Know what?”

Sam let his eyes slide over to Dean, who had rolled over onto his front and was passed out in an undignified sprawl. His brother looked so harmless when he slept: like a little kid. “Dean …” he said, and then couldn’t get anything further out.

“Oh. Oh, Lord, no.”

“He didn’t—I dreamt it: it was quick. She didn’t suffer.”

Missouri crossed herself. “I wish that I could hate God, but I can’t. The Lord works in mysterious ways, they say, and it’s true. But it’s the Lord’s compassion that’s got us into trouble this time. He loved Azrael so purely that He couldn’t bear to do what He knew had to be done. Azrael was the first, His first-made. But, oh, sometimes He makes me right angry.”

Missouri stood, wearily. “I’ve got to go, Sam. I can’t be here when Dean wakes up. It isn’t his fault, and I know that, but …” She shook her head.

“I understand. Dean—Dean will too.” His brother would understand too well. Would ask why Missouri hadn’t strangled him in his sleep.

“Elise had a daughter: Ann. Didn’t much hold with her mother, but she may have picked up a few things. She’ll know what happened to her mother’s estate, that’s for sure. What happened to Elise’s books and notes. Might be something there.”

“Okay. We’ll look her up.”

“You do that. And Sam?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Wouldn’t hurt for you boys to step foot inside a church for something other than holy water. Try asking for help.”

“You think that’ll do anything?”

“You won’t know if you don’t try. You take care of Dean, honey, but if he starts—There may come a time when you have to leave him.”

Sam’s jaw tightened. Missouri read the determination in his face and sighed, shaking her head. “You Winchester boys always were a stubborn bunch.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Your brother’s been rubbing off on you, I see. You might want to watch that lip: you haven’t got the face to pull it off.” Her fond smile and enveloping hug took the barb out of her words. “Call me if you think there’s something I can do.”

“I will.”

She left then without looking back, leaving Sam alone with Dean. Sam sat down on the bed and put his head in his hands. Waited for his brother to wake up.

 _I gave my brother to the Angel of Death._ He would try to fix this, he would, but he was starting to think that maybe Dean had been right that day in the middle of the cornfield, when he’d said it was too late.

Dean made an unhappy noise in his throat and moved suddenly in his sleep. He seemed to be struggling against something Sam couldn’t see, his hands held tightly behind his back. His body jerked as though he’d been struck. _He’s dreaming,_ Sam realized. _Dreaming or remembering something that bitch—bastard—whatever—did to him._

He reached over quickly and wrapped one hand around Dean’s wrist, pulling his brother’s hand up and threading their fingers together. Dean’s hand tightened on Sam’s and then went lax again as his body slumped back into a deep, dreamless sleep. Sam thought about backing off again and then decided against it. He shifted closer instead, leaning over from his own bed and holding his brother’s hand in his. He could feel Dean’s pulse underneath his fingertips, slow and steady. He let his eyes slip shut. Let that one sensation anchor him, while everything else fell away.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Dean came back to himself slowly, groping his way out of nightmares that were more than half memory. Things that the bitch had done to him during their sessions in the basement. Things he’d done to other people: the things he’d done to that one man in Texas. He’d kept hoping—came as close to praying as he ever did—that the man’s body would just give in, but it had taken him almost three hours to die. Afterward, Dean had found blood in the strangest places: like sand at the beach, that shit got everywhere. He’d almost lost his cool when he found the last lingering trace underneath the fingernail on his left pinkie days later. Had somehow managed to excuse himself from Sam and then spent almost twenty minutes in the bathroom scrubbing at his hands, searching for any other bits he’d missed.

Coming back to consciousness, where he could lock those images out, was a relief until Dean remembered what had happened before he went under. Missouri, brushing his back with the barest of touches, and something in him recognizing something in her and then there was pain, rushing through him like it had that first time in the basement. He’d thrown himself away from her, but it hadn’t stopped, and then there was a tearing sensation in his shoulder blades, so familiar, so hated, and _her_ voice murmuring in his ear: **Kill them, Dean. You’re mine: you belong to me. Kill them and then come. Mine. Kill them, Dean. Do it now.**

But he _wasn’t_ , damn it, and he _wouldn’t_ because this was Sammy they were talking about. No way in fucking hell was he going to tear into his little brother, and the way he was feeling, if he let her get hold of him at all, then he was going to be using his hands and teeth for the kill. She wanted it fast, but she wanted it messy. Wanted it to hurt.

He’d begged Sam to get out—take Missouri with him—but the asshole hadn’t listened, had come _toward_ him instead, and Dean could feel himself draining out through that tear in his shoulder blades, leaving nothing behind but her voice, her rage. And then, miraculously, it had stopped.

Everything had stopped.

After that, he remembered only darkness, and the dreams.

“Hey, you’re up. G’morning, Sleeping Beauty.”

Dean lifted his head from the pillow and twisted, squinting behind him. “Sammy?”

“One and only. I picked up some breakfast, but it’s probably cold by now. Coffee too. You wanna get up and we’ll head down the street to that diner?”

Dean frowned. Okaaaaay, this was definitely not the reaction he’d been expecting. Still, he could run with this. So much better than Sam prodding at him all the time, trying to sign him up for the Sensitive Man Newsletter. It was easier to lock everything away when Sam wasn’t pounding on the door.

“Yeah, sure. I’m starved.” He was, he realized. Dean tried to remember the last time he’d actually eaten something. Four days ago, maybe. Microwaved hotdog at that gas station. Or was it five days, now? God, how long before his body started to eat itself? He quickly shut that line of thought down. His Wolverine-like super-healing was probably rebuilding everything as fast as his body broke it down, anyway.

“Where’s Missouri?” he asked. _Did she do it yet? Are they coming?_ But if they were, he didn’t think that Sam would be standing there with a dopey grin on his face. And he certainly wouldn’t have let Dean lie there passed out for … well, however long he’d been passed out for. “And what day is it?”

“It’s Saturday. You slept all night, man. And Missouri left. She, uh, had to get back to Lawrence. Appointment she couldn’t miss.” But Sam flushed guiltily as he said it.

 _Appointment, my ass._ Still, Dean couldn’t fault the woman. After that little display of his, it was a wonder she hadn’t stabbed him through the heart herself. Cut off his head for good measure. Yeah, no way he’d come back from something as final as decapitation. God, had she called someone? How could she not have? They were coming: they had to be. Sam just didn’t know about it—wouldn’t know until it was too late, if Dean had anything to say about it.

“Okay, sure,” Dean said. He was still dressed from yesterday—smell check turned out fine so he dunked his head in the sink to straighten out his hair, pulled on his boots, and they were in business.

Dean’s reawakened appetite demanded that he order one of everything on the menu. Then, of course, when the food arrived he was able to eat two pancakes and a few strips of bacon before his stomach started protesting. Sam smirked and Dean glared. Sam asked where Dean had thought he was going to put all that food. Dean pegged him in the forehead with a homefry. Sam asked when was he going to grow up, for God’s sake? Dean snapped back with his own question: when was his little brother going to stop being such a whiny bitch?

It felt good: felt normal. It felt, for a while, as though there wasn’t blood on his hands. Innocent blood. It was a lie, of course, but he and Sam were good at lies, weren’t they? Maybe they could stay like this, until the end. Yeah, and maybe pigs would fly.

Still, Dean was thankful that Sam had waited until he was aware, and more relaxed with the weight of a heavy meal in his belly, before saying in that too-casual way he had, “Say, we haven’t been to Pastor Jim’s in a while. Maybe we should drop by.”

“What for? He’s dead, remember?”

“Eddie took over the parish. You remember him—the guy who dropped your ass in touch football? We could pay him a visit, have a rematch. You always liked it there.”

“No, _you_ always liked it there.”

“Whatever, dude.” Sam was quiet for a moment, then said, “Maybe we could stop somewhere tomorrow, catch a service? We haven’t been since Iowa. Remember? The Sorensons?”

“Yeah, and there’s a reason for that: that church stuff gives me the creeps. I dunno how people can be so stupid, listening to those fucking charlatans. Even Pastor Jim, he—Something wrong with your face, Sammy? More than usual, that is?”

“Ha-ha. You should take your act on the road.” Trying to brush it off. But Dean had seen Sam’s cheek twitch as he worked his jaw. Which meant that there was something going on here Dean was missing. Suddenly he didn’t feel quite so content. He stood up and tossed a handful of bills down on the table.

“That should cover most of it. You can get the rest.”

Sam tensed. “Where’re you—”

“Back to my room. I wanna get changed. These clothes stink, man.”

“I, uh, checked you out of your room while you were sleeping.”

Figured. Sometimes Sam was so fucking predictable. “Okay, then. I’ll see you back there.”

“No, wait up. I’ll come.” Sam scrambled out of the booth himself and dug his wallet out of his back pocket.

The waitress swung by as he was counting bills out. Pretty in a quiet, mousy way. Wore glasses, hair done up in pigtails down her back. She glanced down at the piles of food Dean had left behind and then grinned at him. “You want that wrapped up, sugar?”

“Mmm? Oh. No, we’re traveling. It wouldn’t keep. Thanks anyway.”

“Want something else wrapped up? Or unwrapped?” Brushing closer to him.

Dean blinked at her. “Excuse me?” He could feel Sam staring.

“I could take my break. There’s a room out back—storage closet. It wouldn’t take long.”

What the fucking hell? Oh. Oh godfuckingdamnit! With everything else distracting him lately, he’d forgotten to take his pills. A week, at least. He clamped down as tightly as he could on the siren song and smiled tightly. “Some other time. Sam?”

“Yeah, right. Um, thanks.”

She let them go, but watched after Dean as though memorizing him. Sam waited until they were outside before demanding, “What was that, Dean?”

“Forgot to take my pills.”

“The ones uh ... Rachel told you to take?”

“Yeah.” They’d reached the room and Dean leaned against the side of the building, not looking at Sam and waiting for him to unlock the door already.

“What do they really do?”

Dean shrugged. Watched as a man in his forties loaded his car up a few doors down. “They help. Make it easier to keep the siren song under control. Keep me from going all Energizer Bunny if I don’t get some every few days.” Sam shot him a look as he opened the door and Dean grinned. “Hey, man, you asked.”

He moved inside in front of his brother and glanced around for his bag. Saw it in the corner next to Sam’s. Okay, nice. He’d down a few pills and clear this little problem right up.

“What’s in them again?” Sam asked as Dean fished the little bottle of homemades out and popped the top.

“Asphodel and angelica. Little honey. Tried adding a few drops of holy water about a year ago and that seemed to help some, too, so I left it in the mix.”

“Angelica?” There it was again, that twitch in Sam’s cheek. And this was the reason Dean had always kicked his little brother’s ass at poker.

“Yeah.” He trotted into the bathroom and popped the pills in his mouth, then leaned over the sink to drink from the tap. Pulled his head back up to swallow and found Sam leaning in the doorway, watching him.

“Dude,” he said when he could talk again. “What are you, my shadow or something?”

Dean shouldered past Sam into the room. The laptop was out on the table and he moved toward it. Maybe he could find them a job near here. Kill some evil sons of bitches while he waited for the hunters. Try to even his scales a little.

“It’s kind of ironic,” Sam said as Dean sat down in front of the computer.

“What is?”

“The angelica. The ... everything.” Sam sounded serious, which was no big deal—normal state of being for the big geek—but he also sounded upset, which was ringing all sorts of alarm bells in Dean’s head.

“You got something you want to say to me, Sammy?”

“Missouri knows what it is.”

No need to clarify what ‘it’ was, of course.

Dean slowly turned his head to stare at his brother. Blood was roaring in his ears.

“She told me before she left,” Sam added.

“And you didn’t think that maybe this was something to mention before you dragged me out to breakfast? How long were you going to wait to tell me?”

“I was trying to figure out how to say it. It’s not—this isn’t easy, Dean.”

“Oh yeah, I’ll bet this has all been real hard on you, Sam, what with the sitting on your ass and all. I think I’m gonna cry, just thinking about how hard—”

“Stop it, Dean. I didn’t mean it like that, and I know what you’re doing, so just—just stop, okay?”

“Oh yeah? What am I doing, huh, Sam? You’re so fucking smart, you tell me.”

“You’re trying to start a fight so you don’t have to have this conversation, but you know what? You already know what it is, Dean. You just don’t want to admit it. You’ve seen it with its masks off, haven’t you?”

 _Smooth, black skin. Something golden, shining. Wings, high, unfurled. Eyes solid silver, bathed in liquid light, blinding._

Dean narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking abou—”

“It’s an angel, Dean.”

 _Yeah._ And then, a heartbeat later, _No. Can’t be. Imfuckingpossible._ He managed a laugh, deep and cynical. “Yeah, right. An angel.”

“I’m serious, Dean, and if we’re going to do something about this then you need to admit that it’s true.”

Dean shook his head, wonderingly. “Whatever you’re smoking, Sammy, I’ve got to try it, cause it sounds like a real trip.”

Then Sam was in his face and Dean was being slammed into a wall and fighting not to strike back. Fighting down that tearing sensation through his shoulders that told him that the wings wanted to come out and play. Sam didn’t seem to notice Dean’s inner struggle, pulling him forward a little just to slam him back again, hard.

“Stop it, Dean! Just come on and fucking admit it! You saw it, and Missouri _knows_ you saw it and she told me so _I_ damn well know you did too! Why the hell else do you think there are _wings_ coming out of your back?”

Angel. An angel had chained him up, tortured him, turned him into a murderer. An angel. One of God’s Ministers of Grace. It was true, all true. He’d seen the fucker underneath the illusion—ebony skin, silver eyes, gold wings: a thing so fucking beautiful it hurt to look at it.

Too much. It was too much. Sam was pushing, battering down his walls with his words and the _anger/sadness/pain/confusion_ in his eyes and then Dean was shoving back, throwing Sam off him— _not too hard, don’t hurt Sam, don’t hurt_ —and sprinting for the bathroom. He dropped to his knees in front of the toilet, leaned over, and let his breakfast come charging back up.

When he was done, he let himself slump sideways, leaning against the wall. Let his head fall back against it as well. Sam was in the doorway, hands dangling at his sides. Dean let his eyes slide shut so he didn’t have to see the crumpled look on his brother’s face.

“Dean? Are you okay?”

“Just peachy.” Dean snorted, bitterly. “Just my luck that I managed to piss off both sides of the damned war.”

“I don’t think anger has much to do with this—not at you, anyway.”

“Yeah, well, whatever. Doesn’t really matter, does it? Either way I’m fucked.” He sighed, letting his hands curl into fists against the cold tile floor. “So, does this thing have a name or should I just call it Bob?”

“Azrael,” Sam said softly. “The Angel of Death.”

Yeah. Figured.


	4. Chapter 4

Dean hadn’t wanted to go to Oregon. More precisely, he hadn’t wanted to leave before the hunters Missouri had supposedly called got there, and he most definitely hadn’t wanted to go find Ann Tallahause, who was apparently living in her mother’s old house. Sam didn’t really blame him on the second count, but, even though there was no danger that any hunters would actually turn up looking for Dean, he hadn’t been willing to let his brother stay behind. Azrael could call him at any moment, and they had no idea how much it knew about what was going on—whether it had felt the ward activate or not—and how that would alter the playing field. And Sam wasn’t letting that thing anywhere near his brother, not for a fucking second.

Yeah, maybe he’d been a little short with Dean this morning, but he hadn’t really had a choice. And Dean’s sulking around like some condemned prisoner on death row had been pissing him off. So Sam didn’t really regret that he had finally snapped and yelled, “Missouri didn’t call anybody, Dean, and she’s not going to, so you can just take all this suicidal crap and shove it!”

Sam didn’t think that he deserved the silent treatment he’d been getting ever since. After all, he’d been pretty damn understanding these past few days, what with finding out that Dean was the fucking Angel of Death that had been making hunters piss their pants for the past six months or so. And Dean had to know that there was no way that Sam was just going to sit there and watch him self-destruct.

So if Dean wanted to act like a bitch now, then he could just bring it. Two could play at the “I’m not talking to you” game. Contrary to popular opinion in these parts, Sam _did_ know how to keep his mouth shut every once in a while.

So he sat quietly while Dean drove. Didn’t ask any questions when Dean pulled off the highway and started taking them west instead of northwest. But when his brother pulled the Impala to a stop outside a shitty, rundown house in Utah, he couldn’t take it anymore.

“What the hell are we doing here?” he asked. Then, when Dean only turned off the engine and got out of the car, he called, sharply, “Dean!”

“I’ll be right back,” Dean said. “Just stay in the car for a few minutes.” He shut the door in Sam’s face.

Sam leaned back in his seat, and for a few seconds he thought about getting out of the car anyway, and screw what Dean wanted, but then he squared his jaw. Dean wanted to be an ass, make a detour out here for some stupid reason, then he could waste his time doing that. He could drag his feet all the way to Oregon, if he wanted, so long as he got there.

It wasn’t until Dean had been gone for fifteen minutes that Sam realized that Dean might not exactly have come here of his own free will. Had Azrael contacted him somehow? Had it sent Dean here to kill someone? And Sam had just let his brother walk right in and …

The ripped screen door opened and Dean stepped out. He was talking to someone inside the house, which meant that there probably hadn’t been any killing. Okay, yeah, good. But no way was Sam letting Dean out of his sight again. God, that had been dumb.

Dean got back in the car and tossed a brown paper bag onto Sam’s lap. Sam picked it up gingerly. Glanced over at Dean as he started the Impala.

“What’s this?”

Dean raised one shoulder in a shrug.

Sam reached into the bag and pulled out a small, stoppered bottle. Clear liquid inside, marked with an official-looking label—this had been in a doctor’s office or a hospital once, before someone had stolen it. Sam peered at the label. _Sodium thiopental._ What the fuck?

“This is an anesthetic,” he said slowly.

“Yeah.” Now Dean did look over, briefly, and the fear Sam saw in his brother’s eyes sent a shiver through his body. “You said—Hell, Sam, I don’t want to go back there either.”

“How much?”

One of Dean’s eyebrows lifted. “All of it, Sam.”

“Dean, there’s almost 70 mg here.”

“It’ll keep me down for maybe four hours. After that I’ll need another dose. I would’ve bought more, but that’s all he had.”

Sam’s hand tightened on the bottle. Thought that its faint medicinal scent was tainting the air in the car. He felt like throwing up as he put the bottle back in the bag.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sam was driving and they passed a church and he pulled over. It was late afternoon, and the sermon was over, but it was still Sunday so he hoped it would be open. It was.

Dean stayed in the car. According to him, this was all a load of bullshit and Sam was being a dick, but Sam knew better. He saw it in the way Dean wouldn’t look at the church: the way he hunkered down in the passenger seat as though trying to hide himself. _Damned,_ his brother’s eyes said. _I’m damned and if I go in there God’ll fry me with a fucking lightning bolt._

So Sam went in alone and sat in a pew in the back. The church was empty except for an old woman dusting around the altar, who took no notice of him. There were angels everywhere: carved boy-men with kind faces and fluffy wings, beaming down on him.

Sam lowered his head to pray. After a few minutes, he got up and left, feeling useless and empty. He’d tried, but he hadn’t been able to make the words come. Too aware of Dean waiting in the car outside, and of the painted, cherubic faces watching from within.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Ann wouldn’t open the gates. Wouldn’t even talk to them.

The place looked the way it had in Sam’s nightmare: same high walls and heavy gate, same rolling lawn on the other side. He could mark out the exact spot Dean had stood: noticed Dean was carefully staying as far away from it as possible, his eyes hooded and face carefully closed. The house, which Sam hadn’t been able to see in the dream, was huge—more mansion than house, more estate than mansion—and made of stone. Must have cost a fortune.

“It’s really important,” he tried again, speaking carefully into the call box. “We have to talk with her.”

“Ms. Tallahause, she doesn’t see anyone. Now get lost before I call the police.”

Okay, this wasn’t a problem. He could call Missouri: get her to phone Ann and tell her—

“You really think she can help, Sam?” Dean asked suddenly.

“She knows where that book is. We need to get out hands on it: it might help us figure out what it wants—maybe how to kill it.” Because angel or not this thing had messed with his brother and Sam was going to put it down. Hard.

“Okay.”

“‘Okay’ what?”

But Dean had already turned away from him and was standing statue-still, facing the gates. He didn’t look like he was doing anything, but Sam could feel some hidden pressure pulling at his skin.

“Dean?”

Dean didn’t respond and Sam edged closer, moved to get a better look at his face, and felt his breath hitch in his chest. He’d always known, objectively, that Dean was better looking than he was— _Pretty Boy_ , Sam had called him until Dean had shown him that, pretty or not, he could still kick Sam’s ass ten ways from Sunday. But this was the first time that Sam had ever actually seen his brother looking this … God, what? Beautiful? Dean would hate it, that word, and it didn’t quite cover everything, but it was the closest that Sam, for all his vaunted vocabulary, could come. Dean looked like a fucking piece of art. Like a … like an angel. If angels went around exuding sex and looking like someone had just ripped their heart out at the same time.

Because Dean was beautiful, but his face was a painting of misery. His eyes were closed, and Sam was glad because he didn’t want to see the expression in them. Didn’t want to see just how broken his brother was.

There was a woman coming down the driveway from the house: hurrying. Running. Sprinting.

And Sam realized, suddenly, that Dean was using the siren song to bring her to them. _Like mother, like daughter,_ he thought, and then he was moving, reaching out to clamp onto his brother’s arm and shake him.

“Dean! Stop it, Dean! You don’t need to do this.”

Dean opened his eyes then, and looked past Sam. Made a small, wounded noise in the back of his throat and turned abruptly away, breath coming fast and shoulders heaving. Sam glanced over his own shoulder to see what had upset Dean and just stopped.

It was Eloise Tallahause, or maybe her ghost. Same sweeping, auburn hair. Same delicate, almond face. Same wide, brown eyes. Thick lashes.

Sam was still staring at her when the _need/hunger/want/now_ expression drained from her. He saw her realize where she was, notice the two of them, and start to turn back to the house. Saw the fear—terror—in her eyes before she did.

“Ms. Tallahause, wait!” he called, taking a step forward. “We’re friends of Missouri Mosley. She sent us here.”

The woman—not Eloise, surely, and now that he’d been looking at her longer, Sam thought that this woman looked younger, and maybe a little … fiercer: Ann, then, this was Ann—stopped. Turned around, caution etched in every line of her body.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Sam: this is my brother Dean. We need your help.”

She frowned at him. “How stupid do you think I am? And what did you do to me?”

“Umm …” Yeah, how to answer that one.

“I’m sorry,” Dean said suddenly from behind him.

And now was not the time for Dean to confess his sins, because then they’d never get inside. They’d talked about this already. “Dude, shut up,” Sam hissed.

But Dean wasn’t listening, was maybe too far gone. The shock of seeing Ann looking so much like her mother had shattered his control.

“I’m sorry, so fucking sorry. God, I’m sorry.” He went to his knees, hands clutching at the asphalt and head bowed.

“Dean!” Sam dropped next to his brother, pulled his hands on Dean’s shoulders, trying to steady him. Dean was still whispering, but inaudibly now. He didn’t seem to register Sam’s presence, locked inside some private hell of his own making.

“If you can cross the barrier, I’ll see what I can do to help him.”

Sam glanced up to see that the gate had been drawn back and jumped to his feet, pulling Dean with him. He slung an arm around his brother and held him up, moving them both toward the gate and Ann, who was waiting just inside. Dean moaned, pushed at Sam weakly. Sam ignored him.

“Sam, don’t—”

But then Sam was stepping through the gates and bringing Dean along with him. There was a flash of bright light and Sam found himself flung forward. Dean collapsed at the gate, shuddering and screaming. The wings, red shadows, erupted from his back and fluttered in agitation, snapping around him. _Oh God, what now?_

“Dean!”

“Stay right where you are.”

Sam stopped, frozen by the gun that had appeared in the girl’s hand. Dean’s scream went on and on: how was he even breathing?

“Please, Ann, we don’t want to hurt you. Just let me help my brother.”

“Not until I know what’s going on—what you’re doing here. So start talking. Now.”

Sam shot a glance at Dean, writhing on the pavement, screaming—God, that _sound_ —and said quickly, “We’re in trouble. There’s this angel, Azrael—”

The gun twitched in Ann’s hand, like she wanted to fire it, and had only just stopped herself in time.

“We’re not—we aren’t with it. It wants something from my brother. It did something to him. We aren’t here to hurt you, I promise.”

“Swear it, by the Heavenly Hosts and the Lord on High.”

“I swear. Just, please …” _God, Dean …_

“Say the words.”

“I swear by the Heavenly Hosts and the Lord on High that we aren’t here to hurt you.”

She stared at him for another long moment— _too long, come on you bitch just let me go to him let me do something_ —licking her lips, and then, finally, lowered the gun. Sam dove for his brother, but Ann was closer and got there first. Avoiding the wings, she bent down and traced a symbol on Dean’s forehead, whispered some words, and Dean went still, his scream cut off abruptly. The wings fluttered once more and then shrunk back into their hiding place. For now. Dean lay there, staring at the pavement, pupils dilated.

Ann pulled a cell phone out of her pocket and hit a button. Held it up to her ear. “It’s Ann. I’m bringing some people up. We’re going to need some holy water, and a pitcher of orange juice … I know what I’m doing, Fredericks.” She hung up and looked at Sam. “Get your car: we’ll drive him up to the house.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Please tell me that was vodka.”

“Holy water,” Ann said.

“Yeah, right.”

“Just take it, Dean. Ann knows what she’s doing.” Sam hoped.

But Dean’s defenses were back up and he didn’t move, staring distrustfully at the glass of orange juice Ann was holding out to him.

Ann sighed. “It isn’t poisoned or anything. It’s just o.j. It’ll help with the … aftereffects.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll pass.”

Sam moved forward and took the glass himself, then pushed it into Dean’s hand. “You’re drinking it.” He turned and smiled at Ann. “Thanks.”

She shrugged and went to sit in an oversized leather armchair. It fit the rest of the room perfectly: early 20th century English manor. Sam felt horribly conspicuous in his jeans and t-shirt. There were butlers here, for crying out loud: older men with slicked-back hair and haughty attitudes and suits. Dean either hadn’t noticed or didn’t care, which was pretty much par for the course. Dean had only ever cared what two people thought of him: one now, with Dad gone.

Dean was finally sipping at the juice, and sulking as he did so. His face was scrunched up in disgust, his eyes sharp with annoyance when he looked at Sam. Okay, fine. Sam didn’t care. Actually, scratch that. It was good to see Dean behaving normally again, even if it was all a front. Sam stepped over and sank down next to Dean on the couch—also leather, and about as comfortable as sitting on a wooden plank would have been. It looked nice, though.

“So talk,” Ann said. “Give me a reason not to toss you two out on your asses.”

“We need your help,” Sam said.

“You already said that. What I want to know is why I should help you.”

“Because we’re going to kill Azrael for you.” Dean’s voice was calm: his tone deceptively casual, unless you knew him well enough to read the expression in his eyes.

“Who?”

“Don’t play dumb,” Dean said sharply. He leaned forward, smile gone. “You know exactly who I’m talking about.”

Ann shrugged. “Okay, yeah. If you knew to come here, I guess you would know that too. And it’s tempting, fellas, it really is.”

“Then what’s the problem?” Sam asked.

“You can’t kill angels. They’re immortal.”

“Demons are supposed to be immortal too, and I’ve iced my fair share of them.” Dean wasn’t boasting, just laying the facts out there.

“Demons aren’t angels: they used to be, maybe, but God threw them out of the club. That makes them as killable as anything else, as long as you have the right tools.”

“God tossed Azrael out too,” Sam pointed out.

“Azrael’s only on probation." Ann leaned her head against the armchair's backrest. "It’s still technically an angel. Which means that you can’t kill it.”

“You’re wrong,” Sam said. His voice sounded strange in his own ears: choked. A little desperate.

“Because you’re such an expert.”

“Don’t mind my brother, lady: he’s just trying to postpone the inevitable.”

Sam wanted to tell Dean to shut up: wanted to shake him until he broke through that stupid fucking fatalistic attitude he’d decided to take up. But he was having a hard enough time swallowing the lump that Ann’s certainty had created in his throat. What if she was right—she couldn’t be, but what if she was? What if this really was it?

“Which is?” Ann asked dryly.

Dean shrugged. “It managed to get its claws in me and it isn’t letting go. Me, I’m not all that sweet on it, but Azzie just can’t seem to take no for an answer.”

“What does it want with you?”

Dean’s eyes slid away from Ann and his hand tightened around the glass he still held. He stood up, paced a few steps toward the window that looked out on the grounds. Sam didn’t think he was going to say anything, but then Dean opened his mouth and just dropped it out there.

“It wants a personal hitman. Someone to do all the dirty work it isn’t supposed to do itself. Someone to tie up loose ends that spend their lives hiding behind angelic wards.”

Ann’s face had gone white. “You bastard.”

Dean didn’t say anything: didn’t move. Sam was frozen in horror. They’d talked about this, damn it—well, he’d talked and Dean had sat there with flint for eyes and an indifferent expression. But Sam had thought he’d gotten his point across: no telling Ann that Dean had offed her mother. Wouldn’t win them brownie points with her.

 _Oh shit oh shit oh shit._

Sam was still sitting there, stunned, when Ann launched herself off the chair at Dean. When she spun him around with a vicious push and punched him hard enough that his head snapped to the side and Sam heard the nauseating crack of breaking bone: Dean’s cheekbone. The glass fell, shattered on the wooden floor.

Sam was finally with the program, was getting up and moving to stop her, but she was still striking at Dean, punching and kicking what she could reach. Dean was just standing there, taking it. Sam reached them and wrapped his arms around Ann’s waist and lifted, pulling her off his brother. Then she kicked him in the shin and squirmed, and he dropped her, wincing.

She was on Dean again in a flash, shoving him back against the window with enough force to crack the glass and then she had the gun out again and it was pressed in the soft area underneath Dean’s jaw, pushing his head up and back.

“Ann—” Sam started.

“Shut up,” she hissed, not bothering to look at him. “And stay back or I’ll shoot him right now, I swear to God.”

Sam stopped himself and stood there, glancing around the room for something that would help them out here: he’d left his gun in the car, hadn’t wanted to spook Ann, and yeah, _great_ job there. Dean had a gun—Dean went armed when he was sleeping, for God’s sake—but he wasn’t making any motions toward it. He wasn’t twisting out from Ann’s gun, wasn’t doing anything but standing there, and Sam _knew_ , damn it, that it wasn’t because Dean was trying not to startle her.

Sam felt tears welling up in his eyes as a cold fury grabbed him and shook him the way he wanted to shake his idiot brother. The sight of Dean leaning against the window, head tilted up and eyes shut, just waiting, drove a spike of rage right through his heart. He had done it on purpose, the asshole.

“Why?” Ann demanded. “Why the hell did you do it?”

But Dean’s mouth may as well have been wired shut.

Ann pressed the gun more firmly against his throat. “Answer me, damn it!”

Now Dean did speak. “You’d better aim a little lower. Heart’s a sure kill.” _God, Dean, don’t antagonize her._ But Ann didn’t seem to have registered his words.

“Did you enjoy it? Did you like killing her?”

“No.” A breath of a word, slipping out past Dean’s lips of its own accord.

“How’d you do it? How’d you get her to come out to you?”

“Same way I got you to come out to the gate. Siren song.”

“Dean, don’t—”

“I told you to shut the hell up.” Now she did look at Sam, face screwed up in anger. But only for a second, and then her attention was back on Dean. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Got bit by an incubus. Picked up a few tricks. I called her out to me and I let her kiss me and then I stabbed her in the heart.”

Sam saw Ann’s shoulders tense, saw the shake in her arm begin, and thought that this was it: this woman was going to spread his brother’s brains across her windows. Missouri had talked a good talk, but he didn’t think that Dean would be able to move fast enough to stop her. Even with the quickened reflexes, even if Azrael had put some other kind of warding on him.

But instead of firing, Ann asked, again, “Why? I want to know why.”

Dean clenched his jaw, and Sam could tell from the expression on his brother’s face that he was done talking. He was going to wait there until Ann worked herself up to it and then … If Dean thought that Sam was going to let him do that, then he was crazy as well as suicidal.

“He did it for me,” he said anxiously.

“Sam, shut up,” Dean snapped, but Ann pushed the gun into his throat, stopping his voice.

She turned her head again, focused piercing eyes on Sam. “What?”

“He did it to protect me. There’s this demon—it’s been after me since I was born, killed our mom, my fiancé, and our dad. It wants something from me, we don’t know what, but it—Azrael was going to give Dean to it if he didn’t do what it wanted. It was going to use Dean to get to me.”

Ann stared at Sam for a moment longer and then turned back to Dean. The gun didn’t come down. She looked up at Dean, who had opened his eyes to yell at Sam, and caught his gaze.

“You think that makes it okay? You think his life is worth my mother’s?”

“No.”

“Then why? You tell me _why_ , damn it!”

Dean’s eyes slid shut again. “He’s my brother.”

“She was my _mother_! She was my mother and you put a knife in her heart!”

“Yeah.” There were tears slipping down Dean’s cheeks, more than Sam had ever seen his brother cry, even when they were standing in front of the bier holding their father’s burning body.

Ann stepped back suddenly, the gun still pointed at Dean. Dean slumped a little but didn’t move away from the window. He opened his eyes and looked at her, face empty.

“I’m not going to shoot you,” Ann said.

 _Oh thank God._ Sam let out a long breath and then reached out to steady himself on the back of the couch as relief weakened his knees. But Dean’s face crumpled at the reprieve.

“Why?” he demanded.

“Because you want me to.”

She lowered the gun finally, tucking it into the shoulder holster she was wearing underneath her suit jacket. Dean just stood there, jaw working, trying to pull himself back together. Ann turned away, dismissing him, and faced Sam.

“I’m going to do what I can for you, but let’s get one thing straight here. I don’t like you, and I don’t trust you. I’m not doing this for you: I’m doing it because it will probably piss Azrael off, and that fucker deserves it. But if we’re going to do this, then you’re staying here. You don’t leave the grounds for any reason. I want you where I can see you. Both of you. Do we have an agreement?”

Sam nodded, but for the first time he wondered if he’d been wrong to bring Dean here. Because, looking past Ann to Dean, he thought that maybe he’d just finished breaking his brother for the angelic son of a bitch.


	5. Chapter 5

Dean stayed out of Ann’s way, ghosting through the house. He talked to Sam whenever Sam could find him, but those occasions were few and far between: Sam was busy researching, poring through the books in the estate’s extensive library. He wanted to spend more time with Dean and try to get him to talk about what he was feeling, what he’d been through, but they were on a timetable here.

Ann helped him look. Sam thought, as the days passed, that she had come to respect him, maybe even like him a little bit despite herself. They bonded over stories about their parents—her mother, his dad—and their own failed struggles to become something other than what their parents wanted them to be.

“I wanted to be a marine biologist,” Ann admitted over lunch one day. Sam had tried to find Dean and been unable to, so he’d taken her up on her offer to eat together.

“I was going to go to law school,” Sam said. “I mean, well, not at first. At first I just wanted to get away. But when I got to college, I realized that I missed helping people. Not the other stuff—the scams, and the hunting, and never knowing if Dad and Dean were …” He stopped, realizing he’d brought up the forbidden subject, and then finished, lamely, “So I figured law was a good way to go.”

Ann didn’t look upset that he’d brought Dean up, only thoughtful. “Did you miss them?” she asked.

“Dad and De—Yeah. My old man, not so much, because I spent most of my time being pissed at him.”

“But you missed your brother.”

Sam didn’t know where she was going with this, but things were getting a little too close to the edge here. “Ann,” he started.

“Tell me about him.”

“Why do you want to know?”

Ann shrugged. “Just curious, I guess. I haven’t seen him since—Ah, he’s been spending a lot of time walking on the grounds, I’m told.”

“He thought it’d be better if he stayed out of your way.”

“Yeah.” Ann toyed with her glass of water. “I can’t help being angry with him,” she said. “Even though I know he didn’t really want to do it.”

“Ann …”

“No, Sam. Let me say this. I can say it to you, okay?”

Sam sighed. “Yeah, okay.”

“I don’t want to be angry with him, but I am. It’s his fault that I don’t have a mother anymore, and I never got to—we didn’t part on friendly terms the last time I saw her.”

“Yeah, I get that.”

“Sometimes I want to just hate him and get it over with, but I can’t do that either, because I don’t know what I’d do if I were ever put in a similar situation, and I—I’ve read my mother’s research. I know what Azrael’s like. What it can do. I’m just—I’m confused, Sam. He murdered my mother. You tell me he’s killed other people, maybe a lot of other people, and you still—I’ve seen the way you look at him. You still love him.”

“He’s my brother.”

“So? I know a lot of people who’d give up on their siblings for a hell of a lot less than this. So I want to know. I want to know what kind of man he was, before Azrael got to him.”

“You think that’d help?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know. I just—I can’t keep going back and forth with myself like this. Sometimes I want to hurt him the way he’s hurt me, and then I feel like the world’s shittiest person for thinking that way. It wasn’t his fault. Azrael twisted him up and turned him around until he couldn’t think straight, and I _know_ that. But sometimes it doesn’t seem to matter. So tell me, Sam. Tell me how it is that you can look at him and not see all those people he’s killed.”

“Sometimes I can’t,” Sam admitted. “It isn’t easy. Hell, Dean doesn’t make it easy. He can be a real asshole. He’s cocky, and he’s a pig when it comes to women, and half the time he acts like he’s five years old.”

“But?” Ann prodded when Sam fell silent.

“But he’s one of the least selfish people I’ve ever met. I know that sounds really stupid to you, but, well, Dean never had a childhood, not really. Dad was busy hunting most of the time, trying to find the demon, and he sort of left it to Dean to raise me. And Dean—he never really asked for anything for himself, you know?”

“I remember this one time in Iowa—I must have been about eight, so Dean was twelve—and he had built this little transistor radio out of spare parts for the science fair at school. Got first place. They were going to have this special ceremony, give out trophies, and I hadn’t really ever seen Dean so proud before.”

“Then Dad came in and said he’d found a hunt in North Dakota: we had to leave right away, told us to pack our bags, and Dean—he just said, ‘Yes, sir,’ and he dragged me out of the room before I could say anything. Then he told me that if I ever told Dad about the award he’d punch me into next week. He stopped trying at school after that, but he made sure I kept at it. Said he wasn’t gonna be known as the kid with the stupid brother.”

Sam smiled regretfully.

“And he’s—the amount of people he’s saved, and he still doesn’t believe that he’s worth much of anything. He beats himself up like hell for the stupidest things, and—” He tried to stop the words, tried to shut himself up, and it all came pouring out anyway. “And it isn’t his fault, it’s my fault for bringing Dean to Azrael in the first place, so if you want to blame someone you should blame me.”

Ann was frowning, opening her mouth to answer, and then Dean stumbled into the room. Sam was out of his chair in an instant, racing over to his brother, who was hunched over with his head in his hands.

“Dean! What’s wrong?”

“The anesthetic, Sam. I need it and I need it now.”

Oh, shit. Sam reached out to help Dean over to the table and ease him into a chair. Heard it as soon as he touched his brother’s shoulders.

 **Come come come come come**

He pulled back, shaking. Shit. How was Dean not running—sprinting—down to the Impala? “Don’t let him leave,” Sam snapped at Ann, and then he was running himself, running for his room and the bottle of sodium thiopental and a syringe. Praying like hell that this was going to work.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Ann found it two days later, in an old, leather-bound book from the seventeenth century. Sam had been thinking about Dean, worrying what this much sodium thiopental was going to do to his brother in the long run, when she lifted her head from the book and called him over. “Sam, I think I found something.”

“What is it?”

“I’m not sure—my Latin isn’t great—but it says something about Lucifer, and Azrael, and something about a ritual.”

“I can translate it.” He left the book he’d been pretending to read and went to lean over her shoulder. The ink was still bold and he could read the script easily. He translated aloud as he read for Ann’s benefit.

“And Lucifer said, ‘I will aid you in your time of need, for though you fought against me in the War, always were you kind to me and mine, and you spoke out for us when no one else would. Now God in His Arrogance has cast you out, but I will aid you in your time of need.’”

“And Azrael said, ‘How can you aid me? For God has cast me out and forsaken me, and He has doomed me because I spoke out for my brethren. Now God will strike me down on the Last Day of Judgment, and will keep me forever apart and alone.’”

“And Lucifer said unto him, ‘Do not fear, my brother, for I have used my powers to look into the—I’m not sure about this word: I think it translates into ‘chest of eternity’ or something like that.”

Ann nodded. “You’re doing better than I could. Keep reading.”

“Right. Um … Okay, here it is. ‘… I have used my powers to look into the chest of eternity and I have found your salvation writ there.’”

“‘Tell me, my brother,’ said Azrael, ‘for I fear God’s wrath.’”

“And Lucifer said unto him, ‘Take you a human and ... and bind him to yourself. And let that human, of his own will, serve you in your ways for three years and then take him and bring him to the place where you Fell to Earth. There let him make a pure sacrifice, like Abraham unto the Lord, and you shall be reborn to the form of man, and he shall be …’” Sam trailed off, staring at the words.

“He shall be what, Sam?” Ann prodded.

“He shall become a Holy Angel of the Lord, and be cast down in your place, and he shall bear the Judgments of God upon himself.” Sam cleared his throat, trying to focus. “Then it starts to go into specifications about what type of human Azrael would need.”

“That doesn’t make sense.” Ann frowned. “You said that the human had to serve of his own free will, but Dean … he obviously didn’t want to do the things he did.”

Sam ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “I don’t know, maybe I’m translating it wrong.”

“Or maybe,” Ann offered, thoughtfully, “Azrael’s playing fast and loose with the letter of the law.”

“You mean as long as it doesn’t use supernatural compulsion it can do anything it wants to … persuade ... Dean to do what it wants, and it’ll count as him doing it willingly?”

“Maybe. Azrael’s been around for a long time. It’s probably pretty good at exploiting loopholes.” She turned the page and then pointed at a line of text. “Does that say something about a martyr?”

Sam looked. “Yeah, it does.”

“Your brother doesn’t strike me as particularly religious.”

“He isn’t. But the word wasn’t originally applied only to Christians: it was appropriated after they started to be persecuted under the Roman Emperor Nero. Originally it meant ‘witness’, or ‘one whose death bears witness’.”

“Oh.”

“Azrael told Dean that martyrs were like unfinished pieces on a chessboard: that they were neutral, up for grabs. I’ve been wondering about that because Dean is one of the least neutral people I know. After all the evil he’s hunted—anyway, this proves I’m right. Azrael was lying. The definition given here is: ‘a martyr, one who is a soldier of light or dark.’ Azrael didn’t need someone who was neutral; it needed a warrior. Why the hell did it lie, though?”

Ann shrugged. “Maybe to give you a reason for what it was doing so that you wouldn’t go looking for one and find the truth. I can’t find it written anywhere that Azrael is forbidden to kill, either. It’s only forbidden from interfering with the major players—those on each side with a great deal of power, who have the opportunity to influence the War.”

Sam sat down across from her and leaned his elbows on the table. Then he put his head in his hands, using his fingertips to massage his temples. “Do you think that this ritual would actually work?”

“How am I supposed to know? We’re dealing with angels here, Sam. They tend to play outside the box.” She grimaced suddenly and turned the book toward him. “Does this mean what I think it does? Here, at the bottom of the page.”

Sam looked and then wished that he hadn’t. _Oboeditio per crudum._ He remembered his dream, Dean pinned to the wall by long knives through his chest. _God, Dean, what the hell did it do to you?_

 _Oboeditio per crudum._

Obedience through blood.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Three weeks later and they were no closer to finding a way to free Dean from Azrael’s hold. They’d gone through five cases of sodium thiopental, which Ann used her money and influence to acquire. Sam slept in the same room with Dean, so that whenever he heard his brother coming around he could put him under again. During the day, when Sam was researching, Ann’s butler Fredericks looked after him. Ann was avoiding Dean and the entire wing of the house holding him as though he had some kind of extremely communicable and deadly disease.

Somewhere around the two-week mark, Ann had brought a doctor over to check Dean out and make sure that he was doing all right. The doctor had looked, taken some vitals, and then shook his head. No explanation for it, because by all rights he should be dead a hundred times over from an overdose, but the man was fine. Brainwaves steady and normal. Addiction? No sign of it, if his tolerance level hadn’t risen. The doctor would come back in two weeks and check again. Took a vial of blood to run some tests. Said he’d get back to them with the results.

Sam was getting increasingly restless. He spent his days locked in the library, searching for some kind of loophole, and his night in an exhausting state somewhere between sleep and waking. He needed to get out for a while—find some space to breathe where he wasn’t being crushed by the weight of the responsibility on his shoulders—but he still hesitated when he mentioned to Ann that they needed some more anesthetic and she said

“Okay, I’ll set it up. Why don’t you go get it?”

“What, outside?" Sam frowned. "I thought I wasn’t allowed off the grounds.”

Ann shrugged, looking a little uncomfortable. “That was before. I trust you now, Sam, and you need it. Don’t try to tell me you don’t.”

He hesitated. “I don’t want to leave Dean.”

“He’ll be fine for a few hours. You’re not with him during the day, anyway. Fredericks can make sure that he gets his shots, just like he always does, and you can get out of here. Try a get a little perspective, maybe.”

Sam wanted to laugh at that. He’d need to go a hell of a lot further than the hospital two towns over to get a little perspective on this fucked up situation.

“I mean it, Sam. Go ahead. I’ll even let you take the Porsche.”

“Really?”

“Really." Her lips curved in a wry smile. "Just don’t hit anything. Fredericks would throw a fit.”

“I shouldn’t …” But he knew he’d already caved.

“Sam. You’re going nuts in here: anyone could see it. Just … just go pick up the anesthetic and grab some food or something. Hell, bring me back a burger from Burger King. I’m in the mood for a little slumming.”

“Come with me?”

She shook her head. “There a book I want to find. Something from Ottoman Greece I remember my mother mentioning. Besides, I’m not the one going stir crazy.”

She had a point. “Yeah, okay. Thanks, Ann.”

“No problem.”

But it was. It was a _big_ fucking problem.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Dean thought that he was probably dreaming because he didn’t remember the waitress— _Christine-Call-Me-Chris_ —from New Mexico being quite such a fucking tease. He was pressed up against a wall in back of the restaurant and she was sliding along him, pushing against him in just the right place with not nearly enough pressure and every time he tried to move his hands up to pull her more firmly against him—or do something about all these clothes, also a great idea—she evaporated into smoke. Which was a good indication that this was probably not really happening, although in his line of work, not a definite confirmation.

If this was a dream, it sucked big time, because blue balls fucking hurt. A lot.

He tried to move away from the wall—if Chris wasn’t going to finish the job then he’d find someone who would, damn it—and the world swam a little. He thought that maybe he wasn’t standing in the back parking lot of some small town restaurant after all, but rather lying in a bed. It was dark. There were covers piled on top of him and **come** someone lying near him in another, smaller bed.

God, his dick was on fucking fire he hurt so much. What in the hell was going on, what **come** had happened? He thought that he made a sound because then the person in the other bed was sitting up, and turning the light on, and he heard a voice—Sammy’s voice.

“S’okay, Dean.” **come** “I’ve got you.”

What? Where? It was starting to come back, pushing through the fog of sleep and _need/want/fuck/now_. Azrael, calling him. The anesthetic. But that didn’t come explain why he felt so … oh, oh _shit_.

 _My pills, Sam. You haven’t been giving me my pills._

“Sammy …” he tried to say, but his brother was pulling his arm out from under the covers and then there was a sharp pinch.

 **Come.**

“I’ve got you, Dean. It’s okay.”

 _Sammy, you dumb shit._ But he was sinking under again, falling down, and he was back up against the stupid fucking wall, only this time it was Patricia, oral hygenist from Connecticut, and there went the same maddening there/not there friction again and _Christ_ why hadn’t he died from the pain already?

Dean wasn’t sure how many times it happened after that. He’d start coming out of it, and sometimes it would be Sam in the room, and sometimes an older man in a suit, and he’d open his mouth to try to say something— _Give me my damned pills_ , for starters—and then there was the pinch in his arm and the world went away again. He was just starting to despair of ever getting any relief again when he felt it, yanking him toward wakefulness even though he could tell it wasn’t time yet.

 _Woman._

He could hear her voice in the room. “I’ll take care of it, Fredericks. Really. Just go get something to eat.”

“Yes, ma’am.” A man. Sound of a door closing.

Dean opened his eyes.

 _Need want now fuck please now now now_ **come** _come here now yes_

She was on him, pressing him into the bed, and there were still too many layers—the fucking covers in the way, too—but God yes **come** she was heavy against his groin, fucking _finally_ , and he moaned, moved his arms up to pull her against him, half-expecting her to mist away like the others, but this time his hands closed on something **come** solid, substantial.

Now. Yes, had to be now. A mouth on his, biting, devouring, tongue shoved past his teeth. More, please. More moaning. His, hers, both of theirs, and the covers were really **come** pissing him off now.

He pushed up with his left hip, enjoyed the increased pressure, and then they were rolling off the bed. He landed **come** sprawled half on top of her, tangled in the covers, and fought his way out, desperate to lose as little contact as possible. He had to be **come** inside her right fucking _now_!

Then the covers were gone and he was on top of her again, pressing her down, mouth on her throat, her hands curled **come** around his ass, moving him against her in hard, steady rocks. Good, yeah, finally some friction he could work with, but not **come** enough. Not nearly enough.

His hands moved to her waist, felt across the front of her pants—button-up slacks, okay, not **come** gonna waste time with that. He gripped the top of the pants with both hands and pulled suddenly, down and **come** out, and heard and felt buttons popping and grinned into her neck. Yeah, okay. Good. Fucking great. Slid his fingers inside the upper hem of silk panties and **come** pushed, feeling her rise up against him as she moved to help.

Okay. Now him. God, this was taking way too long because he could fucking _smell_ her now, and his dick **come** gave a painful twinge at the mental image of _moist/hot/tight_ around him so fucking close and

 **Dean.**

His head snapped up. _What the fuck …?_

 **There you are, Dean. Come. Come, now.**

Then there were hands at his sweatpants, slipping inside, wrapping around him, and he whited out for a second.

 _**Dean.** _

Flashed his eyes open and he was looking down at Ann, who was writhing on the floor panting, one of her hands on herself and the other— _shit fuck_ —on him, working him up and down, yeah, a little harder, just a little

 _Pain!_ Bright and flaring through his shoulder blades. He came back to himself with a lurch. Azrael was not happy about his absence and Ann— _Eloise’s daughter_ —was underneath him. She had a hand wrapped around his dick and, God that felt good …

His stomach twisted. _No. Lock it down, Winchester. Focus on the pain and lock it down._

He did. Managed to push himself off of her and ran for the door: found himself shoved rudely against it. Ann was against his back, naked from the waist down and breathing heavily. He tightened his grip on the siren song—the pain radiating from his back helped with that, was keeping his thinking straight—and pulled it in. Ann immediately stiffened against him, then drew away.

Dean turned, an apology on his lips, and then she was on him again, her whole body pressing him back into the door. Pain or no pain, he almost lost it at that. God, he needed to be inside her, needed to fuck her fast and hard, needed …

 **Come, Dean.**

… He needed his pills is what he needed.

Ann rocked her hips against him, and she was tall enough that that did some very interesting things south of the border. A groan slipped out of his mouth. “Don’t …”

“Why?” she asked, tilting her face up to look at him with dark eyes. “You want me. I can feel it.” Canted her hips again and made him thrust forward in return and thank God he was still wearing his sweats because otherwise he’d be inside her right now.

 **Come. Now.**

“‘S not … right …”

“Please,” she whispered, and he noticed suddenly that she was crying. “I just—please, I just want to not feel, just for a little while …” She was kissing his neck, sucking on it hard enough to leave marks, and he tilted his head back. He could feel her hands on his sweats, pushing them down over his hips. “Please …”

 **Come.**

It was too fucking much. He couldn’t … Sammy couldn’t expect him to hold on through this. Not with the incubus lust driving him and a warm, female body rubbing against him—God, where had his clothes gone?—and that damned, insistent voice pounding in his head and where was Sammy anyway, why wasn’t he stopping this?

“Please, Dean …”

 **Dean, come.**

“Yeah,” he muttered. And shut his eyes and just let go.


	6. Chapter 6

When he got back, Sam found Ann sitting in the middle of the room he shared with Dean. She was naked, wrapped up in a long sheet, just sitting there crying. Dean wasn’t in the bed.

Fuck.

“Where is he?” Sam demanded, striding into the room.

“I …” Ann shook her head, crying harder.

Sam reached down and hauled her up by the arms, shaking her. The sheet came open a little and he caught a glimpse of bruises on her stomach, dark against pale skin. His heart beat violently in his chest.

“Where’s Dean?” he shouted.

She shook her head, tried to bring her hands up to hide her face, and he shook her again. Again. He’d done it again. Betrayed Dean again. Goddamn it! Why the hell had he left?

“Talk to me, Ann!”

“He left!” she sobbed. “I—He wasn’t supposed to wake up for another three hours. I just—I just came in to look at him for a few minutes—I didn’t mean—”

“What happened?” _She’s naked, Sam, what do you think happened?_

“He woke up, and I—all of a sudden I couldn’t think, I couldn’t—I just had to have him …”

Siren song. _No._ “Did he …”

A nod, and Sam wanted to throw up, wanted to take his gun out and shoot Ann, shoot himself for being such a fucking idiot. Instead he dropped her and went over to the bed—to Dean’s bed, and they certainly hadn’t fucked in it, even if it had started here, it was too neat—and stood looking down at it. Ann was still babbling behind him, but he ignored her. He was having difficulty thinking.

 _Okay, I can just … Did he use a condom? Was he thinking that much? ... Still time to get to him, if I leave now … if Dad were here he’d kill me for this …_

“—I made him—”

Wait, what?

“—and then I just—I tried, but he was gone before I realized—”

“Say that again.”

“What?” She blinked at him, hiccupping a little.

“Did you say _you_ made _him_?”

Ann nodded miserably. “He stopped. He was trying to l-leave. But I—it felt so good not to remember, for once, and I …” She flushed, dropping her eyes, and then said quickly. “I begged him to. I could tell that he wanted to, so I—and he—”

“Did he hurt you?”

She shook her head. “N-no. It was rough, but … It’s what I wanted.”

Okay, then. Okay. Sam could handle this, he really could.

“How long ago?”

“About half an hour, I think.”

“I’ll need to borrow the Porsche again. If I hurry, I can still catch up with him before he gets too far.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Dean was in Kansas before he came back to himself a little. His shoulders were on fire and he felt filthy, covered with sweat and … other things that he didn’t want to think about, wouldn’t think about. He wouldn’t think about the way it had felt to finally slide inside her, how soft and wet and, _God_ , hot she was … and oh, shit, how could he have done that?

His throat clenched, memories awash with a confusing mix of two women, both pressed against him. He’d touched them both, left one dead at his feet and the other … He didn’t remember. Was Ann okay? Was she even still alive?

He had to turn the car around. He had to go back and check, make sure. He tried to move his foot to the brake, to turn the wheel, and the pain in his back ramped up, making him cry out.

 **No, Dean. Come. Come to me.**

“Fuck you,” he ground out between his teeth. There was laughter in his head and then he was pulling into a familiar driveway, he was in Lawrence, he was there. How? When? He’d blacked out again: he’d been fucking _driven_ like some kind of toy car. But he wasn’t getting out of the Impala. He wasn’t going inside. It couldn’t make him.

 **Come.**

He got out of the Impala. Went around to the back of the house. Stepped inside.

It was waiting for him in the living room, wearing its Rachel mask. It smiled at him when he came to a stop in front of it and dropped to his knees.

“Dean. I was afraid you were going to refuse my invitation.”

“It must have gotten lost in the mail.”

It tilted its head and made a tsking sound. “I had hoped that we had dealt with this attitude of yours.”

“And I hoped you’d drop dead. Guess we’re both disappointed.”

It stroked his cheek, smiling gently, and he could feel claws under the illusion. “I know what you are,” he said, suddenly.

The hand on his cheek stilled for a moment and then moved up to pet his hair. “And what am I?”

“One of God’s rejects.”

It gripped his hair and yanked his head back. Dean stared up at it as the mask rippled and then faded, leaving him staring into blank silver eyes. Wings, high and golden, spread out from its back.

“You’ve been busy,” it hissed.

“Yeah, well, idle hands and all that.”

“What else have you been doing? Where have you been?” Demanding, ripping the answers from him.

“Researching for a way to kill your feathered ass. Up in Oregon.”

“Oregon.” It bared its teeth in what was probably supposed to be a smile. “And what has Sammy been doing all this time?”

 _Don't tell it, don't_ “Helping me. He knows. Saw me at Landon’s.”

“Well, that _is_ unfortunate for you, Dean. I thought you would have been more careful. You realize that I can’t afford to let you go back to him again.”

Dean forced a smirk on his face. “Afraid we’ll find a way to send you to Hell?”

“I can’t have him distracting you from your purpose. I should have kept you with me long before now, but I’m too soft-hearted.”

“Yeah, that’s you: the Good Samaritan.”

“Get up,” it ordered, releasing him. “We’re leaving. You can take care of your assignment on the way.”

“Fuck you.”

“Do I need to remind you of the ramifications of refusing me?”

“Go ahead. I don’t give a shit. Sam knows now; he won’t let me get within a hundred feet of him without putting a bullet in my ass on principle. That yellow-eyed son of a bitch can do whatever he wants with me; he’s not getting Sam.”

Azrael stared at him for a long moment, and Dean felt hope rise in his chest. Then it wrapped one taloned hand around his throat and lifted him off the ground. His shoulder blades felt like they were splitting apart.

“You’ll do what I say, when I say it, or I’ll slice your brother up from the inside, and it’ll take him days to die.”

“You … can’t … said so …”

“I lied. He’s just a human, Dean, and I’ve been killing humans for as long as they’ve existed. So I want you to think very carefully before pissing me off.”

It released him and he fell to the floor, gasping in deep breaths. When he could speak again, Dean asked, “Then how come you need me?”

“That’s not a question you need to concern yourself with. You see, Dean, you’re mine. I can do what I want with you, and I don’t need to explain anything. You’re my pet—my dog. And you’re going to do what a good dog does and obey. Now get up. We’re leaving your car: it’s too noticeable. Get me one from the street. Oh, and, Dean? When we get to our new home, we’re going to discuss your recent behavior.”

Yeah, he figured they would.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The Impala was parked in the driveway when Sam got there. He’d driven as fast as he could: been so frantic about his brother that he’d ignored the speedometer, ignored everything. Ignored the gas gauge, which was how he ended up losing another two hours by running out of gas on a long, empty stretch of highway in Wyoming. But the Impala was here, which meant that Dean was too. Sam could wait until Dean came out, and then he could grab him and take him back to Ann’s where he’d be safe. Safe because Sam wasn’t letting him out of his sight again.

Sam waited for four hours while the sun lowered and finally set, and then found himself staring at a dark house that felt empty. Abandoned. _Oh shit, oh please God no._

He levered himself out of the Porsche and ran across the street, reaching for his gun as he moved. Went around the back, crouched low and gun out, trying not to involve any of the neighbors in this, although they’d been living next to the Angel of Death for the past year or so, so they couldn’t be that observant. He paused next to the back door, peering in through the glass at a small kitchen. Ordinary, clean.

Sam didn’t know what he was doing. He didn’t know what he was going to do if he was wrong and he burst in there to find Azrael waiting for him. The gun wasn’t going to help—he didn’t know why he even had it out, except that it felt comforting in his hands. He was terrified of confronting the angel, but at the same time he desperately wanted Dean to be here. Needed Dean to be here.

Sam took a deep, shuddering breath, and went in.

He searched the main floor first—kitchen, dining room, living room, bathroom—then went upstairs to the two bedrooms and second bathroom. Empty. He saved the basement for last because he remembered Dean talking about his time there—obliquely, never anything definite, but Sam thought he had a pretty good idea of what had gone on. He didn’t want to stand in that cement room and think about what might have happened to his brother there.

When he finally screwed up his courage enough to make the trip down, he thought that he could have gone his entire life without seeing Azrael’s basement.

There were chains bolted into the wall, but that was by far the most prosaic thing in the room because Azrael had decorated in blood spatter: walls, floor, ceiling. And unless it had been grabbing people off the streets to play with, Sam had a pretty good idea who all that blood belonged to.

Obedience through blood.

 _Oh God, Dean, what did it do to you?_

There was something tacked up on one of the walls that Sam really didn’t want to look at. Didn’t want to think about. Because it looked sort of like a brittle and badly-cured piece of leather. And he couldn’t look too closely at it because there was a darker pattern on it, like a thin, sickle-shaped scar, and that’s what it was, of course, because there’d been that farmer’s ghost in Iowa and it had caught Dean across the back and then Sam was on his hands and knees, dry heaving because he hadn’t eaten anything recently enough to actually throw up and his whole body was shivering.

 _Dean Dean Dean Dean Dean_

A phone was ringing somewhere. He hadn’t seen a phone upstairs, so what … Oh right, _he_ had a phone. Yeah, okay. Sam fumbled for it, glanced at the number and bolted upright, flipping the phone open and shoving it against his ear.

“Dean? Dean, are you okay? Where are you?”

“He’s fine, Sam.”

He didn’t recognize the voice because it wasn’t bothering with disguises anymore, but he knew who it was anyway.

“You Goddamned son of a bitch, let him go!”

“I’m not damned, Sam, not yet. Haven’t you read the literature?”

“Let him go!” Sam yelled.

“I’m afraid not. Your brother and I have things to do. People to kill.”

“The ritual won’t work. You’re spending all this effort for nothing.”

“Oh, I have it on the best authority that it will. Does Dean know, or did you figure that part out while you were drugging him? Never mind, Dean will tell me. He tells me everything, don’t you, Dean?”

Screaming. _Oh God._

“Get your hands off him!”

“This is your fault, Sam.” Another scream. “If you hadn’t tried to keep him from me, I wouldn’t have to punish him.”

“Please, don’t …” Was that Sam’s voice? Broken and cracked?

“Don’t what, Sam?” Dean’s scream was hoarse this time: damaged.

“Don’t hurt him, please …”

“He has to be taught, Sam. And so do you. I want you to remember this when you think about trying to take him away again. Feel free to hang up whenever you like.”

And then the screams started in earnest, and Sam was weeping, begging, curled up with the phone pressed against his ear. Azrael wasn’t acknowledging him anymore, but he couldn’t seem to stop the weak pleas from crawling out anymore than Dean could keep himself from screaming.

There came a time when Dean’s voice gave out, and all Sam could hear were wet, bloody noises. He lay there, listening, until his cell battery went dead and the connection was cut. Because he owed it to his brother. He couldn’t leave Dean to go through it alone, even if his brother didn’t know Sam was listening.

And there was another reason.

Obedience wasn’t the only thing that could be bought with blood. There was also vengeance.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sam didn’t know, afterwards, how he got himself back to Ann’s in one piece. He wanted to hate her and couldn’t. She hadn’t known any better. Sam was the one who had let a little restlessness drive him away from his brother, leaving him unprotected. Sam was the one who’d been stupid enough to forget, in his mad dash across the country after Dean, that cars needed gas. Sam was the one who’d brought Dean to Azrael’s attention in the first place. But still, for the first few weeks it was difficult to look at her: to even be in the same room with her. He kept hearing his brother’s screams.

He’d burned the house in Lawrence to the ground, starting with the basement. The fire had spread to one of the houses next door and he couldn’t seem to care about that. Was glad in an abstract way that no one had been killed or even injured, but he didn’t really think he would have been that bothered if someone had died, as long as Azrael's house was nothing more than ash.

He researched. Slept when he had to. Ate absently whenever Fredericks brought him something. He dreamed. Tried to forget about it when he woke up. Weeks ticked by, then months, and then Ann was slamming a book down in front of him and smiling triumphantly.

“We’ve got the fucker,” she announced. “Look, this is in angelic script—I found it in the safe a few months ago but I needed to get it translated.”

Sam blinked down at the book. “I recognize that.” He pointed to one of the symbols. “It wrote that on Dean’s forehead during the ritual.”

“That’s Azrael’s name. Probably part of the claiming ritual. But, Sam, look.” She thrust a piece of paper into his hands, neatly typed out.

Sam looked down, scanned the page, and then looked up at her. “This could work. It makes sense. How am I supposed to find him, though? Bobby’s been keeping an eye out for any more Angel of Death sightings, but I don’t think Azrael’s sending Dean after hunters anymore.”

“Probably because it knows you’d be able to track your brother that way. But you don’t have to track him. We know where he’ll be—where Azrael has to take him.”

Sam swallowed. “That’s cutting it awful close.”

“I know, but it’s a chance, Sam.” She covered his hand with her own.

He slid his eyes shut. _Yeah, but will there be anything left of Dean to save by then?_ He didn’t ask the question aloud because he was too afraid of the answer.


	7. Chapter 7

“Come, Dean, we’re going for a ride.” It was unlocking the collar around his neck— _no more trying to run away, now, Dean. Be a good dog_ —and pulling him to his feet. “Get dressed.”

Yeah, okay. Clothes. Dean could do that. He pulled his jeans on, his shirt. His hand brushed against the amulet he still wore and he jerked it away. He shouldn’t be wearing it anymore, he didn’t deserve it, but it was the only thing he had left of his life Before.

The gun came last, and he held it, looking down at it and trying to remember a time when he had liked the feel of its weight there. When it had made him feel strong instead of weak. Ironic, wasn’t it, when he was strong enough to take on anything now. Anything except the one thing he wanted most to kill—the thing he wanted to kill so badly it choked him.

“Are we going to have another problem?” Azrael asked softly.

Fucker always knew when he was thinking about it. Dean considered being a wise ass and then discarded the idea. It wasn’t worth it. He always lost, so he chose his battles more carefully these days. If Azrael was going to spread his insides on the walls, then it was going to be for something that mattered. Someone that mattered.

“No,” he said dully.

“Good. Because today is very important, Dean. Do this one last thing for me and you’ll be free.”

Free. That word had meant something to him once, but he couldn’t really comprehend it anymore. His old life felt distant. He thought, maybe, that someone had loved him, but couldn’t really believe it. Trying to reach that kind of memory always resulted in a disconnect.

“You can go back to Sam,” it prodded.

“Sam.”

“You remember Sam, don’t you, Dean?”

“Yes.” But there it was again, that disconnect. Sam. Friend. Brother. The words didn’t really mean anything.

“Put the gun away and come down to the car.”

No gun. That meant wetwork. Messy. Maybe he should have mouthed off. But it was too late now, Azrael was gone, and so he put the gun back down on the table and went downstairs. Started for the door and Azrael, from behind him—never know where the sneaky bastard is—said suddenly, “Your coat, Dean. It’s snowing.”

Oh, right.

The ride was long and silent. Dean drove, turning when he was told to, and finally came to a stop outside a barn. The snow had stopped, but a dusting of white covered everything. It looked pure and peaceful. Dean wanted to just walk out into the middle of the fields and lay down in it. Stay there for a while.

“Get out of the car.”

Dean got out of the car, then went around to the trunk without being asked and looked down at the knives waiting there. Big one, maybe: it was usually faster that way.

“Silver,” Azrael said.

Yeah, silver then. That’d work. They’d all work.

He followed Azrael into the barn.

There were people waiting there for them: an older man in his early fifties and a little girl, holding his hand. Dean looked at her. Long hair, straight as an arrow, and yellow like the sun. She was five, maybe six, and had wide blue eyes. Beautiful. She was going to keep the blond hair when she grew up, you could already tell.

Dean must have spaced out for a minute there because the man was gone, and the little girl was still standing there, staring at him.

“Where’s my mommy?” she asked.

“On a little trip. She’ll be back soon. Until then, Uncle Dean is going to take care of you.” It was wearing its Rachel mask, Dean could hear it in the voice. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off of the girl.

“Oh. Okay. Can we play a game, Uncle Dean?”

Now Dean turned his head to look at Azrael. None of this was tracking in his mind. Azrael smiled at him with its Rachel face, a parody of kindness.

“Go ahead, Dean. We still have some time.”

There was a tug on his hand and he looked down to find the girl standing there. He moved his wrist so that the knife was pressed against his thigh, away from her soft skin.

“Can we play hide’n’seek, Uncle Dean?”

Dean was familiar with that game. He’d played it with his brother, he thought, in his other life. When they were young. But their father had called it Search and Destroy, and there hadn’t been much of anything playful about it. Their version ended in a sparring match that Dean usually won. Still, he’d seen other kids playing it. He knew the concept.

“Okay.”

“Yay! I’m hiding first! Count to one hundred and no peeking!”

“I won’t.” He waited until she had scampered off behind a pile of hay and then asked, “Who is she?”

“Your daughter.”

Dean looked at Azrael blankly. “Really?” He didn’t remember a daughter.

“No, but she’ll do. All that’s required is a symbol.”

“A symbol.”

“Of your devotion to me. And did not the Lord say unto Abraham, ‘take ye your son and sacrifice him unto me?’ And did not Abraham spill his firstborn’s blood across the altar?”

Dean frowned. “That’s not what happened.”

“Isn’t it? My mistake, then.” Azrael smiled. “Count’s up. You should go find her now. You can leave the knife here for now.”

He dropped the blade and moved further into the barn. Found the girl curled underneath a rusting tractor in the back.

She grinned up at him, all white teeth and flailing limbs as she crawled out. “Your turn, Uncle Dean!”

He lost track of time playing with her: hide and seek, tag, airplane, pony ride. Then she was curled up against his side, snoring softly. Dean ran one hand through her hair. Felt his lips turn up into an unaccustomed smile. He didn’t remember having this in his old life—too much danger, not enough time to raise a family, and who’d want to, really, with all the shit that was out there—but he was grateful for this time now, this stolen moment, because soon the target would show up—coming for the girl, maybe?—and Azrael would crook its finger and Dean would paint the floor red. Better in here than outside, where the blood would defile the snow.

There was a blue eye peering up at him.

“Hey,” he said. “Nice nap?”

She nodded, yawned once and was instantly a bundle of energy again. “Wanna play.”

“All right.”

“Hide’n’Seek.”

“Again?”

She pouted. “Wanna play Hide’n’Seek.”

He shrugged. What the lady wanted, the lady got. “Yeah, okay.”

“No peeking, ‘member?”

He nodded, let his eyes fall shut. “One, two, three …”

There was a giggle and a scampering of feet. Dean felt the smile on his face widen. Took his time counting to give her a good head start.

“… ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred. Ready or not, here I come.” Opened his eyes to find Azrael standing in front of him, holding the knife.

“It’s time, Dean.”

Oh. His heart sank, even though he had known that it wouldn’t last. _Stolen moment_ , he thought again. He stood up, taking the knife. Looked around. It didn’t look as though anyone else had arrived but he could be mistaken: he’d been mesmerized by a pair of blue eyes.

“We’re playing a new game, Dean, but you know the rules. Search and Destroy.”

What? No. It didn’t mean—it couldn’t— _he_ couldn’t—

“Her or Sammy, Dean.”

“Sammy?”

“You remember Sammy.”

Yeah, he did, sort of, but … “She’s just a kid.”

“It’s all right, Dean.” It reached for him and he tensed, expecting pain, but it only brushed his cheek. “You’re doing a good thing. It’s a cruel word, you know that. There are things in this world that would do worse than kill her. She’s so beautiful, so full of life and hope. How long before that innocence rubs away? Before she’s fifteen and pierced and pregnant with her brain rotting out from the drugs? Or before something else happens—before she catches something’s eye? A demon, perhaps. Can you imagine what it would do to her?”

Yeah, he could. His hand tightened around the knife handle.

“Just this one. This last one. She’ll be safe from all that evil and you can go home to Sam.”

Home. Sam. Dean didn’t understand those concepts, but he knew what mercy was. Knew it as a negative taken from his life. Azrael was right. Killing the girl would be a mercy. Before something took her and … Yeah, he knew that there were things worse than death. He knew that intimately. Azrael was one of them, after all. What would Azrael do to her if Dean didn’t stop her heart first?

There was a familiar shifting in his shoulder blades as he turned away from Azrael, knife heavy in his hand, to scan the barn. She’d be somewhere in the back, maybe up in the lofts. He’d try there first, then he’d …

“Dean, don’t!”

Dean turned. There was a man standing in the door of the barn, cradling a shotgun in his arms. Tall. Lanky. Face was familiar.

“Sammy.” And just like that, it all came flooding back in, all the emotions and memories he’d spent the last year trying to destroy. The knife fell from his limp hand and then he followed, crashing to the floor under the weight of blood and pain and misery and just trying to breathe through it all.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sam couldn’t let himself think about it too much or he’d lose it, but he hadn’t seen Dean in a year and his brother looked … God, Azrael had … had … It had done things Sam couldn’t begin to imagine, he knew, and he’d expected it to be bad, had tried to prepare himself, but that was his _brother_ over there, and he looked like someone’s mechanical wind-up toy. There was no expression on his face, which wasn’t unusual for Dean, but his eyes were empty too, dead, and Sam didn’t need to be told that there really wasn’t anyone home anymore. And that couldn’t happen because Sam needed Dean to remember him. Needed Dean to choose him one more time.

Azrael was standing in front of Dean, dressed up in its Rachel costume, and talking to him. Sam caught the tail end of whatever it was saying when he came inside.

“… and you can go home to Sam.”

His stomach turned. To think that it had been using him like that all this time—over a year—but then he had bigger problems because Dean was turning away, looking around for someone—probably the perfect sacrifice the ritual had talked about—and there were large shadow wings unfolding from his back. Sam couldn’t help himself.

“Dean, don’t!”

Yeah, that hadn’t really gone according to plan. He was supposed to shoot first and talk afterwards, but he couldn’t just watch as his brother … Dean was staring at him blankly, obviously didn’t recognize him, and Sam’s chest constricted. Then Dean’s eyes were filling and he opened his mouth.

“Sammy,” he said, and then dropped to the floor. Dean was sobbing but not crying, and he was obviously having difficulty breathing, but Sam couldn’t concentrate on that right now because Azrael was coming toward him. It was shedding illusion as it came, expanding and leaking power into the chill air. Sam raised the gun and fired.

Azrael hissed, frozen in a form that was half its own and half human. Silver eyes bored into him from a face that was mottled black and tan. One wing was fully extended, the other still emerging like a golden butterfly from a cocoon.

“You fool,” it snarled, and he shot it again, making it sink to the ground and curl around its wounds in pain. According to Ann, the bullets would keep Azrael occupied for a few minutes, and Sam reminded himself to thank her for the recipe later—if there was a later. Then he was running to Dean and skidding to a stop next to his brother. Dropping down to grab his shoulders.

“Dean!”

“Sammy … What’re you doing here …”

“I came for you. You’re my brother.”

Dean shook his head, getting himself back under control. “No … Sam, you don’t want …”

“Shut up, Dean. I’m not ten anymore. You don’t get to tell me what I do or don’t want.” He wasn’t crying. He _wasn’t_.

“Sam …”

“I need you with me here, Dean. We only have a few minutes.”

“Azrael …” Dean started to lift his head, to look away from Sam, and Sam grabbed his brother’s head and made Dean focus on him.

“Taken care of. Some kind of angel repellant Ann worked up.” He saw Dean's face fall as he remembered and tightened his grip. “Here with me, Dean. Dwell on that shit later if you want, but right now I need you to concentrate.”

“‘M here, Sammy.”

“I’m going to ask you some questions and I need you to answer them truthfully. Okay?”

“Jesus, Sammy, _now_?”

“Now, Dean.” He slid his hand underneath Dean’s shirt and up so that his palm—the one with the sigil painted on it—was resting above Dean’s heart.

“Sam, what—”

“Shut up, Dean. First question: Is your name Dean Winchester?”

“Wha—”

“Answer the question! Is your name Dean Winchester?”

“Yes.”

“Do you reject Satan and all his Minions?”

“I don’t know wh—”

“ _Do you reject Satan and all his Minions_?”

“Yeah, okay …”

“Do you reject the Agents of God here on Earth?”

“Hell yeah.”

“Would you kill for me?”

“Sammy …”

“Would you, Dean?”

“You know I would.”

“Would you die for me?”

“Yeah …” A long exhale, thankful, but Sam wasn’t offering that. Not now, not ever.

“Okay, then. Repeat after me. I, Dean Winchester …”

“I, Dean Winchester …”

“… swear to protect and defend you …”

“… swear to protect and defend you …”

“… by breath, blood and bone …”

“… by breath, blood and bone …”

“… until death take me and earth cover my eyes.”

“… until death take me and earth cover my eyes.”

 _Fuck the bastard, he’s my brother. Mine._ And now the asshole couldn’t ignore it anymore.

“Did I get it right?” Dean was asking.

“Yeah, you did good, Dean.” Sam pulled his hand back. Now all they had to do was ...

Something wrapped around the back of his neck and yanked.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“… until death take me and earth cover my eyes.” _And even then, Sammy. Long as I can._ How could he have forgotten? How could he ever have forgotten?

Sam was quiet. He didn’t move. Dean shifted uncomfortably. “Did I get it right?” he asked.

“Yeah.” Sam’s voice, cracked and weary. “You did good, Dean.”

Dean felt Sam pulling his hand back and, for a second, wished that he’d leave it there a little longer. Human touch. Someone who loved him. _Sam._ But he’d cut his own tongue out before he said that, so he lay still and tried to concentrate on the circle of warmth Sam’s hand had left behind, let himself have that much, anyway, and then Sam was gone from beside him and the air was filled with a snarling cry of fury.

Dean opened his eyes, backpedaled a little on his hands, and looked up to see Azrael holding Sam off the ground with a hand curled around his neck. Azrael. Oh, _shitfuck_ he’d forgotten about Azrael.

“You think this will save him?” Azrael hissed, shaking Sam. “You think this foolish attempt to reclaim him changes anything?”

“He has a choice now,” Sam grunted. “You’re not the … only one … with a claim … on him … You don’t get to … switch places … without his … consent …”

 _Wait, what? Switch places? No, forget that. That fucker’s touching Sam—hurting Sam. Get the knife. Cut its fucking heart out._ Dean scanned the floor frantically, saw the knife at Azrael’s feet.

“You don’t think he’ll give _that_ to me when he’s given me everything else? Every little part of his soul?”

“I think he’ll … tell you to … fuck off.”

Azrael’s head swiveled, found Dean trying to crawl unobtrusively toward the knife. It smiled and casually put one foot on the blade.

“Would you, Dean?” it asked.

“Fuck you and the wings you flew in on.”

“I see. Well then, you leave me no choice.” It turned back to Sam, lowered its arm and let his feet scrape against the floor. “You must know that there’s only one way to break a claim of ownership.”

“I’m not giving him to you again.”

“I don’t need you to. I just need you to die.” Sam stilled, face whitening in a horror that was matched in Dean’s heart. Azrael tilted its head. “What was that saying, again? You can’t take it with you? Goodbye, Sam. Give my regards to God.”

“No!” Dean screamed, launching himself off the ground. He hit Azrael at the same time that Azrael’s claws slashed across Sam’s throat, opening red rivers and coating both it and Dean in arterial spray. Dean fell back from Azrael as though he’d run into a brick wall and then stared up, numbly, as Azrael grinned at him. Its hand opened and Sam dropped to the floor.

“Sam!” Dean scrambled towards his brother. Was grabbed by the back of his coat and hauled up.

“I don’t think so, Dean. You and I have an appointment with a little girl.”

Dean twisted his head, trying to keep his eyes on Sam. God, there was so much blood—was he still breathing? Did it matter? There was no way an ambulance could get here in time, even if Dean could manage to make the call. Azrael shook him. Pain sliced through him. He didn’t care.

“Focus, Dean.”

“Sam! Sam! Fuck you, let me go! _Sammy_!”

“I’d do what he says, Azrael.” A child’s voice, high and sweet, but twisted now. Darker. Dean knew without bothering to turn his head that her eyes would be a swirling, sickly yellow. For the first time in his life, the fact that the demon was here meant nothing to him. Not with Sam lying in a steadily spreading pool of red.

Azrael released him and he sprinted over, knelt in his brother’s blood. “Sam! God, Sam!” He pulled off his coat, bunched it up and shoved it against Sam’s throat, ignoring his brother’s feeble attempts to reach for him.

“S’okay. I’ve got you, Sam. S’okay.” He sensed something coming up behind him and ignored it. Heaven or Hell, it didn’t really make much of a difference. He put a hand on Sam’s cheek to focus his brother’s wide, panicked eyes back on him.

The little girl’s voice spoke over his shoulder. “Pity. I had such high hopes for this one. Still, he has given _you_ to us. I think that’ll outweigh the loss.”

“What are you talking about?” Azrael’s voice. Distant, unimportant. Sam’s blood was coating his fingers: he’d left fingerprints on his brother’s cheek. God, how much blood could he lose without … No, don’t think about that. Not gonna happen. _Oh, God, Sammy, I’m sorry._

“He was ours, Azrael. He was ours and you’ve killed him.”

“He was insignificant. A bit player.”

“No. No, he wasn’t. Oh, perhaps now, but in a few years? You swore an oath to remain neutral in this war, Azrael. An oath you’ve just broken. That means you Fall. And this death? The marvelous job you’ve done with Dean? _That_ makes you ours.”

“No.” A new note in Azrael’s voice now: panic. But what did it matter? Sam was bleeding out, bleeding out right in front of him on the floor of this shithole barn in the middle of nowhere.

“Oh, yes. In fact, I think someone’s on their way right now to collect.”

Dean felt the change happen, but didn’t understand what it meant. Didn’t really care. He wasn’t breathing anymore, and his heart was still. Sam’s eyes had rolled back in his head and he wasn’t moving, his skin horribly white in contrast with red smear Dean had left on his cheek.

A hand settled on his shoulder.

“Dean.”

He shrugged violently, fumbled for Sam’s wrist, feeling for a pulse. Nothing.

“Dean, we must speak.” Something shining walked into Dean’s field of vision and he had to glance up: that glow drew his head up.

Angel. A real one, this time: not Fallen, not in limbo. Dean felt something in his heart break at the sight. Deep blue skin, like the middle of the ocean. Wings the color of sea foam. Slender body, neither male nor female and yet somehow both at once. Same silver eyes, but these were not empty like Azrael’s: they were too full. Full of _lifelovejoypeacehappiness_. Dean felt those eyes tug at him, try to wrap warmth around him, and shut it out.

“Dean.”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Seraphiel. I am a Messenger.” Its eyes slid to Sam and then back to Dean. “I have halted time so that we may speak.”

“Sam … he’s ...” Dean swallowed. “Help him. _Now_.”

“It is not our place—”

“Like hell it’s not! You think I don’t know the stories? What about Lazarus, huh? You can bring someone back from the dead, you can help my brother.”

The angel frowned. “His time had not yet come.”

“Yeah, well neither has Sam’s. It’s your fault he’s like this: yours and God’s. What, God couldn’t be man enough to send that bastard Azrael to Hell where it belongs?”

“Azrael was not always so … bitter.”

“Oh, so that’s what we’re calling it.”

The angel cocked its head, listening to something Dean could not hear. “The Lord God hears your words, and He understands. He regrets. We will grant your prayer. It has been judged that there has been enough death in this matter: the Books have been rewritten. It is not his time.”

Seraphiel leaned down and pulled Dean’s jacket away from Sam’s neck. Pressed its hand against the jagged tear. The skin knit together, became whole, and Dean watched as the color returned to Sam’s face. But his brother remained motionless, frozen out of time.

“He’ll be okay?” Dean resisted the urge to check Sam's pulse again. It wouldn’t do any good, considering that his own was a little slow right now.

“Yes. Will you now speak with me about the road before you?”

“What road?"

“You stand at a crossroads, Dean Winchester, and if not for your brother’s intervention, you would already be standing before the Lord of Heaven awaiting His Word.”

“Come again?”

“Azrael has deceived you. He made you believe that he required you to act as his agent on Earth, but in this he has lied. The oath he swore required that the Powers on both sides be inviolate. The lives and deaths of others were within his grasp.”

“Why’d he need me then?”

“The First Among the Fallen made a gift to Azrael: a way to avoid the Lord God’s Judgment on the final day. He was to take a human—one who would fulfill his old duties of his own free will: a minor agent of the light or dark, a martyr—and keep him for three years. On the eve of the third year, Azrael would become mortal, while the human took Azrael’s place.”

“You’re trying to tell me that it wanted to turn me into an angel?” Dean couldn’t quite wrap his head around it.

“The Angel of Death, yes. Azrael lost his faith. He did not believe that the Lord God would take him back when the time came.” Seraphiel looked behind Dean and Dean turned his head to see Azrael and the Demon staring at each other, both as still as everything else. “The Lord God is merciful. He would have forgiven Azrael, on that day. He will forgive the others, those who stood aside. Azrael could not wait. He doubted. He is first-made, but he has no faith, and so he is lost.”

Seraphiel turned its attention back on Dean, and it was like the sun coming out, like a lifetime of birthdays and Christmas’ all at once. It smiled. “But your heart is pure. The Lord God would take you into His service, if you will go.”

“Woah. Hold on, here.” Dean shook his head. “I’m not a fucking angel.”

He thought that Seraphiel’s lips twitched. “As I said, you stand at a crossroads.”

“Because of what I told Sam.”

“An ancient ritual. Short, but binding. His actions have given you a choice, Dean Winchester. Stay here, by your brother’s side, and live, or accept the transformation and serve as the Lord God’s soldier. Or lay down your arms, and the Lord God will grant you peace.”

 _Yes. Yes, that. Please._ But he said, “Let me get this straight. I can stay here with Sam, stay human, or I can become an an—” God this was hard to say. “An angel, or I can die.”

“Yes.”

“What will happen to Sam?”

“That is not for you to know.”

“He’s my brother. I … I’ve always been there for him, you know?”

“It is your decision to make, but you must make it now. I can not hold back time indefinitely.”

 _Oh, fuck me._ Dean pressed his eyes shut and all he could see were the faces of the men and women he’d killed. He hurt so fiercely inside that he’d somehow passed the threshold of pain and gone numb. But he could hear Sam’s voice in his head. _Thank you … I came for you. You’re my brother … I need you with me here, Dean._

“Not all martyrs die, Dean,” Seraphiel said gently. Dean thought he felt something brush against his cheek, feather-soft. “Sometimes they live.”

“I’m so tired.” The admission was dragged from him unwillingly.

“I know.” That sensation again across his check, the slide of wingtip against his skin, wiping away tears that he couldn’t feel himself crying. “You carry a great weight: too much. It does not belong to you.”

Dean shook his head. “All those people. I did things to them—horrible things. I killed them.”

“If a plow furrows too deeply, a wise master will not blame the plow, but the farmhand who held the handle.”

Dean opened his eyes, looked up at Seraphiel. Trust an angel to throw some kind of stupid parable at him. But Seraphiel was smiling down at him.

“Something more contemporary, perhaps. If a wheel on your automobile were to rupture, would you blame the car?”

“I’d blame the idiot who didn’t check the tires before he started on a cross country roadtrip.” Sam had done that once. They had to wait in a one-restaurant town for three weeks for a new set of tires to come in.

“My point. Azrael owes penance for those souls. And for yours. You do not. We will not leave you to bear a burden that does not rightfully belong to you.”

Dean sighed. Seraphiel was full of shit, but there was no use arguing. After all: angel. “Sam’s gonna kill me for doing this.”

“Your brother will understand. He would have understood whatever you chose.”

“Yeah, I know.”

It leaned down and pressed its lips against Dean’s forehead. Dean pulled back, scowled up at it. “What was that for?”

But it only smiled at him. “Be at peace, Dean Winchester.”

Time lurched to a start around him and suddenly Sam was sitting up, gasping, one hand going to his throat. _Thank God,_ Dean thought, and actually meant it for once. He reached out to help his brother up and Sam grasped his arm and then froze, staring over Dean’s shoulder.

“Dean,” he gasped.

Dean turned his head. A vaguely humanoid blue shape was moving toward Azrael, who was shrinking back, obviously wanting to run but unable to move. Azrael screamed as the light reached it, then passed through it, leaving behind the Rachel form Dean was so familiar with. Not a form now, though. That was a _body_. Azrael had fallen. And it wasn’t a demon. It was human.

“ _A gift._ ” Seraphiel’s words brushed through Dean’s mind and then faded as the blue light winked out.

Azrael stared down at herself for a long moment, shell shocked, and then threw her head back and screamed. The demon was laughing, hands pressed girlishly against its lips. Dean reached over and picked up the knife. Tightened his grip on it and then stood up.

“Azrael,” he said, and when she looked at him, he smiled. “Come and get it, bitch.”

Dean let loose the siren song. Saw the demon jerk its head around to stare at him as though he’d done something interesting and ignored it—problem, problem, no Colt this time—focusing instead on the pull, wanting Azrael to come, but wanting Azrael to know what was happening. Releasing just enough of the siren song to let her know what it had felt like to have no control: to be forced to come when called, like a dog.

“Please.” The word dropped from Azrael’s lips. Her eyes were wild and haunted as her feet dragged her forward.

“Finally learned that word, did you? Heard it often enough.”

“Sam, don’t let him …” She was right in front of him now, and he backhanded her with his empty hand.

“You don’t get to talk to him, bitch.” He held the knife up, the tip just above her heart. Grinned coldly. “How about a kiss.”

Dean let the siren song sing out and Azrael stepped forward again, face going slack with desire. There was a brief moment of resistance before the knife slid into her body, scraping along the ribs, and stopped her heart. He held her up on the knife, staring into her still, twisted face.

Dead. Azrael was dead. He thought he should have felt something—anything. But he only felt tired.

“Well, that was certainly entertaining.”

Dean put one hand against Azrael’s shoulder and shoved, pushing the body off of the blade, and then looked over at the demon. It was grinning at him: obscene on the little girl’s face.

“Go back to Hell where you belong,” Dean said, and felt his brother come up behind him. The demon’s eyes slid over to Sam and Dean sidestepped, staying between them.

“Dean, _don’t_. Move.”

The demon’s grin widened. “What do you think you’re going to do, Dean? That siren song of yours only works on humans, remember?” It tilted its head to the side, consideringly. “You know, I’ve always only seen you as a way to Sammy, but maybe I’ve been a little hasty.”

“It’s me you want, leave him out of it!” Sam tried to move around Dean and Dean grabbed Sam’s arm. Pulled him back.

The demon threw back its head and laughed. “Well, now, maybe I want both of you. Sort of a two for one deal.”

Dean cocked his arm, ready to throw the knife, child or not.

The demon narrowed its eyes and edged back. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me, you yellow-eyed bastard.”

The demon studied him for a moment and then nodded. “We’ll do this later, then.” It grinned. “See you around, boys.”

Then its mouth was opening and it was cascading out in a waterfall of black smoke. The little girl threw her arms around herself and sat down on the floor in a graceless thump. She looked at Rachel’s body, at the two of them, both covered in blood, and then she burst out in tears.

Sam glanced at Dean, a question in his eyes, and Dean nodded. “I’ll be okay, Sam. See if you can calm her down.”

He watched Sam hunker down next to the girl and pull her into his arms. Dropped his eyes to the body at his feet. He still didn’t feel anything, and he wondered how long he could go on like this, even if it was for Sam.

Suddenly something brushed Dean's shoulders, soft like feathers, and a warm voice breathed into his ear, “Be at peace.”

His chest loosened and everything flooded out from behind the wall he'd built up over the past year. Every face, every scream, every minute he'd spent under Azrael's bloody hands. Dean dropped the knife and staggered a few feet away before dropping to the floor, where he put his head in his hands and wept.


	8. Chapter 8

Sam drove east until he was starting to fall asleep at the wheel and then pulled off the main highway. Found a hotel where they wouldn’t ask too many questions about the way he looked and registered under the name on the first card he dug out of his wallet. Dragged Dean, only semi-aware, out of the car and into the room. Managed to kick the door shut with one foot and then stood there, his brother a dead weight at his side, looking between the beds and the door to the bathroom. He shook Dean a little and his brother groaned in protest.

“Shower or bed, man?”

“Mmmm?”

“Shower or bed?”

Dean lifted his head, seemed to take a little stock of his surroundings, and then slumped again. “Get this stuff off me, Sam.”

“Yeah, okay.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Dean dreamed. He was good at swallowing down the screams, at waking himself before it got too far, but Sam heard his choked cries one night—couldn’t not hear them: he was sleeping only a few feet away. He rolled out of bed, leaned over Dean and put a hand on his brother’s shoulder.

“Dean. _Dean_.”

Dean’s eyes snapped open and he grabbed Sam’s hand, fingers digging instinctually into the pressure points, and twisted. Sam winced and went to his knees, wrenching his arm up so that Dean wouldn’t break his wrist. Dean swarmed out of bed, pushed Sam over with the weight of his own body and then knelt on his chest. Released his wrist to wrap both hands tightly around his neck.

“Dean,” Sam choked, trying to pull his brother’s hands away. “It’s me.”

Dean blinked twice and then awareness flooded into his eyes. He was up and off Sam in an instant, sprinting into the bathroom and slamming the door shut behind him. As he lay there on the floor, Sam heard the lock snap shut. He waited until his breathing had slowed again, and then climbed to his feet and went over to the bathroom. Rapped his knuckles against the door.

“Dean?”

“Go away, Sam.” Dean sounded worn out and Sam’s chest constricted once, painfully.

“Dean, open the door.”

“Please, Sammy.”

Sam stood there for several more minutes, hands hanging limply at his side. He considered getting the tools from the trunk of the Impala and picking the lock, but wasn’t sure how Dean would react. In the end, he crept back into his bed and spent the rest of the night staring at the ceiling. In the morning, when Dean finally emerged, his head down and his shoulders hunched, Sam didn’t say anything.

When Sam woke the next night to Dean’s frantic, sleeping whimpers, he lay still and listened. After a while, Dean woke himself up and padded into the bathroom again. Sam stared up at the ceiling. _This is my penance,_ he thought, and he kept watch there until morning.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

They moved aimlessly across the country, not working jobs, not stopping in to see anyone they knew, just moving. Or rather, Sam moved aimlessly across the country and he dragged his brother with him.

Dean refused to take any interest in what they were doing: where they were going. He wouldn’t even drive the car. Sam offered his brother the driver’s seat, left the keys out for him in the morning, even tried putting them in Dean’s jacket one night. The next morning, he had found Dean sitting in the passenger seat, keys waiting in the ignition.

If Sam tried to talk to his brother about what had happened, Dean shut down. Pulled back inside himself. If Sam tried to touch Dean, offer him some small measure of comfort, he flinched away. If anyone came too close, brushed against him as they were walking down the street, Dean panicked. Didn’t calm down again until Sam had packed him into the Impala and put some miles behind them.

Sam thought that maybe he was trying to find somewhere that Dean could escape the nightmares. Somewhere they could rest, just for a while. Learn to be brothers again. Where Dean could learn to be a person again. Sometimes, he thought that he was trying to drive them into forgetfulness. During the day, with the country unfolding all around them and his brother’s head resting lightly against the window, letting the warm sun sink into his face, the idea didn’t seem so foolish. At night, with Dean pacing restlessly in the bathroom, and Sam pretending to sleep in his own bed, it seemed like the most idiotic idea in the world. Sam just didn’t know what else to do.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

In Stowe, Vermont, Dean stopped in the middle of the street and some rich family’s SUV almost turned him into a smear on the pavement. Sam had dragged him out of the way in time, luckily, and now he was swearing at his brother angrily and resisting the urge to punch him in the face. But Dean was passive, eyes locked on something over Sam’s shoulder.

Sam twisted to look for himself and saw a man holding a young boy by the hand. They were standing outside one of the shops, looking in. The boy raised one mittened hand and pointed, said something, and then man nodded. They moved forward and Sam saw that the man had a heavy limp. Dragged his right foot as he walked as though someone had severed the hamstring there.

Dean’s face was carefully blank when Sam looked back at his brother, but he wouldn’t meet Sam’s eyes. Sam swallowed, looked over his shoulder again, and moved so that he was between the man and his brother. Stood there quietly until the man and the boy had disappeared inside one of the quaint little shops. Dean’s jaw worked and he swallowed, then shrugged deeper into his coat.

“Come on, let’s get going.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“You wanna spar?”

“Not now, Sam.” Dean was flipping listlessly through stations on a battered TV in the motel room.

“Come on, dude.” Sam stepped in front of the television and flipped it off. “I’m out of practice. Do me a favor and help me out, here.”

Dean looked up at him flatly. “I said no, Sam.”

Sam dropped it.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“I did that,” Dean said softly. They were sitting in a booth at the back of a dirty diner two weeks later, a plate of half-eaten fries and burgers in front of both of them.

Sam glanced up at his brother, face lined with confusion. “What?”

“That man, with the kid.”

Sam remembered. He fumbled for something to say: he’d never expected his brother to bring that up again—to bring any of it up. “Um,” he managed, brilliantly.

“I killed his wife. Cut her throat. Made him watch. It was supposed to be a message. He didn’t come through, I’d be back for the kid.”

“You didn’t, though, Dean.”

“No.” Dean shoved a few fries around on his plate. “But I would have.”

There wasn’t really anything Sam could say to that.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It was pleading that woke Sam up later that night: a wordless mewling at the back of his brother’s throat.

“Dean. Dean, wake up.”

Dean whimpered in his sleep again, tried to duck away from Sam’s hand.

“Come on, man. Wake up.”

Dean opened his eyes and tried to come up swinging. Then found himself pinned to the bed as Sam—learned this lesson the first time—caught both his wrists and pushed them back down. Dean’s eyes widened and he lashed out with both feet, curling up and then kicking out to push Sam off of him. Sam fell, his back slamming into his own bed, and a hiss of pain slid past his lips.

A moment later Dean was leaning over him, guilt etched across his face.

“Oh, God, Sam. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“I’m fine,” Sam grunted, but he let Dean help him up. He was going to be bruised tomorrow. “I should have known better.”

Dean frowned. “Don’t make excuses for me.”

“No.” Sam tightened his jaw. “I should have known better, Dean,” he repeated. “I saw …” He hesitated, not sure if now was the right moment to bring this up, but he’d been wanting to say the words for so long and hadn’t known how. Now that the moment was here, he couldn’t keep them in. “I saw the basement. In Lawrence.”

Dean flinched, although he must have known Sam had been there, and his face shut down. Then he walked into the bathroom and shut the door: shut Sam out. The shower turned on.

For a long moment, Sam sat there, painfully aware that Dean was using the shower to mask the sound of his sobs. Then he pushed himself up and left the room. Went outside to sit on the curb where he couldn’t hear anything but the night. He sat there until the sun came up, and when he went back inside Dean was back in his bed, sleeping. His brother looked horribly fragile lying there. Younger, somehow, than Sam had ever seen him before.

Sam cleared his throat, pushing down the lump that had lodged there, and went into the bathroom to shower.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

He got the idea two days later while they were driving through Harrison, Georgia. They’d been here before with Dad. Helped some folks out with a problem they were having with a nasty ghost in their kitchen. Sam took a left on Grove Lane: let his memory draw him a map. When he pulled up in front of the house, it looked the way he remembered it.

Dean glanced over at him suspiciously. “What’re we doing here, Sam?”

“We came here with Dad, remember?” Dean shrugged, trying for nonchalance, but Sam could see the recognition in his brother’s eyes, so he pushed forward. “What was her name again? Jaime? Josie?”

“Janette,” Dean grunted, then looked annoyed with himself.

“Yeah, Janette, right. You think she still lives here?”

“I don’t give a fuck.”

“Maybe we should drop in, say hey.”

Dean’s eyes were stone and Sam swallowed. Glanced away.

“It was just a suggestion.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

But Sam didn’t let it end there.

He corrected their course: started aiming for the places he remembered stopping before he had left for California, places Dean had left living, breathing people behind him. Drove past the homes they’d stopped in. Dean was a silent thunderstorm in the seat beside him, which made Sam shift uncomfortably, but it was a step up from numb despair, so he kept going. Dean could be as pissed as he wanted at Sam, could hate him if that's what it took to break through the bleakness that had shrouded Dean since Sam had reclaimed him that night in the barn.

When Sam ran out of places they’d been before Stanford, he shifted gears. Started hitting the towns that he and Dean had worked together, when they were reconnecting the last time.

In Lake Manitoc, they stopped for lunch downtown. They had paid the bill and were headed back out to the car, Dean a few steps behind Sam, when something shot past Sam and into his brother. Sam’s heart thudded painfully as he spun, reaching for his gun and knowing that it was too late, too late. He’d gotten lazy, slow, and now Dean was …

… being hugged by a gangly, brown-haired boy who looked about twelve. Dean was standing there, frozen, looking down at the boy who was thumping his back enthusiastically with one hand. The kid was talking a mile a minute.

“… didn’t think you’d ever be back. Mom was talking about you just a few days ago, wondering where you were and what you were doing and now you’re here. We’ve still got that drawing, you know. Mom keeps it on the refrigerator. She says …”

Dean looked up at Sam, eyes uncomprehending: pleading. His muscles were tensed like he wanted to bolt. Sam eased his hand away from the gun and stepped forward. Clapped a hand on the boy’s shoulder. The boy shut his mouth for a moment, turned his head to offer blue-green eyes and a wide smile.

Sam blinked. “Lucas,” he said. “Lucas Barr.”

Lucas nodded, pleased. Let go of Dean to pull Sam into a hug. “Sam. Great to see you too. Sorry about that, Mom says I talk too much but I never say the right things. She says …”

Sam tuned Lucas out a little, lifting his eyes to focus on his brother. Dean was stone still: his face blank. Emotions were pushing themselves through his eyes too quickly for Sam to read. But he wasn’t running. Not yet.

“… tonight.” Lucas had stopped speaking, was looking up at them expectantly.

“Excuse me?” Sam said.

“You’ve got to come. Mom’ll spaz when she sees you. She’s making chicken tonight. Really good at it.”

Dinner. Lucas wanted them to come to dinner. A meal with other people, in someone’s home. Someone who was alive because of them. Because of Dean.

Dean’s eyes were going wide and panicked but Sam forced himself to smile and said, quickly, “Sounds good.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Dean made it through dinner by keeping his head down and grunting one-syllable answers whenever someone asked him a question. It wasn’t difficult: Lucas seemed to be making up for the year he had gone without speaking as a child. Andrea had known something was wrong the moment Lucas had led them into the house, when she’d moved forward to hug Dean and Dean had shrunk back, stepping behind Sam to shield himself. So she let him be for the most part, not ignoring him but not forcing it either: focusing most of her attention on Sam.

When dinner was over, Lucas dragged Dean up to his room to show him his new drawings and growing CD collection. Sam offered to help Andrea with the dishes and she asked him, elbow-deep in soapy water, what had happened.

Sam shrugged. “It’s not … It’s Dean’s business.”

She flushed immediately. “I’m sorry. I know that, I just—he saved Lucas, brought him out of his shell again. If there’s anything I can do …”

“This was great,” Sam offered. “Dean hasn’t had something like this in a while.”

“Well, you know where we are, Sam. Anytime—and I mean that, anytime—feel free to stop by. We’ll put you up for the night, get a good meal in you. I’d offer for tonight, but I don't think that Dean …” She trailed off and her eyes moved up to the ceiling meaningfully.

Sam nodded. “Yeah. Thanks, though, for the offer. It means a lot.”

When they left forty minutes later, Dean managed a small smile and a “Thanks for having us.”

Lucas waved at them enthusiastically until they pulled around a bend in the road and drove out of sight.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sam got maybe two hours of sleep that night before Dean screamed both of them awake. Sam bolted upright and hurried to his brother’s bed, tasting iron in his mouth where he had bit his tongue. He found Dean huddled in a fetal position, shivering violently.

“Dean. _Dean_.” Sam didn’t try to touch his brother: had learned his lesson by now.

Dean’s head came up. “Sammy?”

“Yeah. I’m right here.” And then Sam’s heart stopped for a few seconds as Dean reached out— _Dean_ reaching for _him_ —and grabbed his arm, painfully tight. Dean was still clinging to him when Sam’s brain started working again and he shifted to grip Dean’s forearm in return. “I’m here,” he said again. “It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

When Dean finally managed to calm himself down over an hour later, he said, “Don’t do this, Sam.”

“Do what?”

“Don’t let me drag you down with me. You should go, you should—” He swallowed, then plunged on, “—you should leave.”

Sam shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere, Dean.”

“Sam—”

“Shut up. You’re stuck with me, okay? Now go to sleep. We’re getting an early start in the morning.”

After a moment, Dean leaned back, unclenching his hand from Sam’s forearm. “Pushy bitch,” he grumbled.

Sam smiled in the dark as he listened to Dean’s breathing even out. His arm was going to be bruised tomorrow. And for the first time, Sam thought that maybe they were going to be okay.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sam started leaving newspapers around the motel rooms; leaving the web-browser open to Legends and Lore websites; leaving clues and hints and finally fucking billboards. Dean ignored everything: ignored Sam’s invitations to train, wouldn’t even touch their father’s journal, let alone a gun or a knife. Which was unacceptable. Dean loved hunting, and Sam wasn’t going to let that angelic bastard take _that_ away from his brother too. So. Drastic measures.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“You fucking asshole.”

Sam winced away as Dean doused the cut in his side with disinfectant. “Nice bedside manner, man.”

Dean’s scowl deepened. “I oughta kick your ass. Fucking prick.”

“I’m fine, Dean. It’s not deep—doesn’t even need stitches.” But Dean’s face was a stormcloud, and so Sam sighed and said, “Look, I slipped, okay? It won’t happen again.”

“Damn right it won’t, cause I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

“Well, _I’m_ not giving up hunting. So I guess we have a problem here.”

Dean’s mouth tightened.

“Unless you come with me,” Sam continued relentlessly. “Guard my back.”

“Damn it, Sam!” Dean exploded, throwing the bottle of disinfectant across the room. Sam forced himself to sit calmly as his brother paced, hands clenched into fists. Finally, Dean leaned against the dresser, stared up into the mirror hanging above it.

“I can’t, Sam.”

“Yes, you can, Dean. I know you’re out of practice, but we can go slow, do some training—”

“I don’t trust myself.” Dean dropped his eyes from the mirror, looked down at his hands. “I can’t go there again, I don’t know what it’ll do to me, if I’ll be able to … to stop.”

Sam wanted to tell Dean that he could: that he would be able to stop. But he didn’t know, not really. He hoped, he prayed, but he didn’t _know_. And Dean would hear it in his voice if he tried to lie. So instead, Sam only said, “You’ll never know if you won’t even try.”

Dean glanced over his shoulder at that, eyes dark but mouth twitching up in a slight smile. “You read that off a fortune cookie?”

“Nope. Mrs. Pettiford, sophmore year, 4th period English.”

“You’re a real geek, you know that, right?”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

They sparred. Dean started jogging again. Sam wheedled his brother into a little bit of target practice. They fell into a routine: training again, testing each other, working back into top form. Working toward something, even though neither of them mentioned it after that first conversation.

Dean’s nightmares grew to be few and far between. He was no longer so disoriented when he came out of them: didn’t take all night to calm down again. Didn’t turn skittish if someone bumped into him on the street.

And then, one afternoon, Sam spread the knives out on the counter.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“No.” Dean’s voice was hard, but his eyes were soft, swimming with pain.

“Come on, Dean. Just a few. Here, I got a board.” Sam held it up: it had been made for darts instead of knives, but he figured it would do. And it was time.

“No.”

“Best two out of three.”

“You hard of hearing?”

Sam turned to face his brother. He tried to ignore his hammering heart and lurching stomach. Made his voice light. “What, afraid you’re gonna lose?”

“I can’t, Sam.”

“Why not? What makes this different from everything else?”

Dean’s jaw twitched but he didn’t speak. His eyes dropped from Sam’s, found the floor.

“Talk to me, Dean. Why can’t you use knives?” Sam already knew, of course—had figured it out when Dean wouldn’t handle anything sharper than a butter knife—but Dean needed to say it himself: needed to confront what had happened. What had been done to him. What he’d been forced to do. So Sam stood there quietly, not pushing but not backing away either. If Dean didn’t face this, it was going to kill him. It was going to kill them both.

Dean shifted uncomfortably and glanced at the door, obviously considering escape. Sam moved to lean casually against it. Waited, letting the silence build until Dean caved under the weight of it, and everything came spilling out. The long hours of pain he had inflicted, the weight of the knife in his hand, the way they begged. The way their eyes had looked when they realized that no one was coming to rescue them, that he wasn’t going to stop.

He slumped on the floor afterwards, dry heaving while Sam rested one hand on his back. Sam waited until his brother had stopped shaking, until he was still again, and then held one of the knives out to him. Dean’s eyes begged him not to do this, not to make him, but Sam remained resolute. Didn’t move, didn’t yield.

Dean pressed his eyes closed, swallowed, and took the knife.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

They went out after their first hunt—an easy, a mischievous poltergeist in South Dakota—and Dean challenged Sam to a game of pool. Proceeded to beat him soundly and then gave him shit about it the rest of the night. He didn’t flirt with the waitress, but he didn’t pull away from her, either. Gave her a small smile when she called him “sugar”.

It was the best night Sam had had in years.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Two days later, Dean showered and then strolled out into the main room with a towel around his waist to find some clean clothes. Sam was busy researching a possible werewolf a few counties over and so he didn’t really notice his brother until Dean cleared his throat and announced, “Hey, I’m borrowing a shirt. Also, definitely laundry time again.”

Sam glanced up, then stared, and finally got up and went over to his brother. Dean raised one eyebrow in question as Sam came to a stop in front of him. “What? Want me to use a different shirt? Cause I’m sure as hell not wearing that pansy ass purp—”

His words cut off as Sam reached out and wrapped one hand around his right bicep, turning him.

“Dude!” Dean protested, trying to pull away. “What the fuck?”

“It’s gone,” Sam said numbly. He pushed Dean around again so that he could see his brother’s back more clearly. Touched the unmarked skin with one finger.

“What?” Dean yanked his arm out of Sam’s grip and strode into the bathroom, twisting to get a look at his shoulder blades. When he saw himself, he froze. Blinked. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sam found that he couldn’t get enough of the sight of Dean’s shoulder blades, tan and unmarked. Wingless.

Dean was lounging on the bed, flipping through their father’s journal. His lower back was striped with shallow, but painful, gashes where thorns had scoured him when the werewolf had thrown him into a thicket. Sam had helped him disinfect them and now Dean was waiting for his skin to dry before sliding into bed.

He turned a page, glanced over and caught Sam staring. Sighed. “Dude, eyes.”

“Sorry.” Sam guiltily shifted his gaze back to the television set, but his resolve lasted for about ten seconds before he went back to watching his brother again instead.

“I’m beginning to think I should be charging you by the hour, Sam.”

“What?”

“Stop. Staring. At. Me.”

“I’m not staring.”

“Well then, could you ‘not stare’ in a different direction?”

“Yeah, okay.” Sam spent a little while flipping through the channels and then put down the remote and looked back over at his brother. “Dean?”

“What?”

“Are we okay, here?” Dean narrowed his eyes, mouth opening, and Sam hastily added, “And don’t give me that chick flick crap. It’s an honest question.”

Dean gave him a long, undecipherable look before turning his attention back to the journal. “Watch your show, Sam.” And then, a moment later and muttered under his breath: “Such a fucking girl.”

A few minutes of silence passed, then Dean looked over again, annoyed. “Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“Stop grinning. It’s freaking me out.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“I mean it.”

“Whatever you say, dude.”

“Freak.”

“Jerk.”

And Sam’s grin widened.


End file.
